She paced the room with the child, and presently remembered that upon an upper floor there dwelt a young married woman, whose husband, a house-painter, was away engaged in his business at a gentleman’s mansion in the country. This young woman, Lotte knew had a child about three months old, and to her she resolved to go for advice and assistance in her almost distracting dilemma. Strange, when she tried to open her room-door, it resisted her strongest efforts. At first she thought it was locked, but she perceived that at the top it pressed against the casing forcibly. With a desperate wrench she forced it open, and made her way up the stairs, feeling the strange tremulous vibration more than ever. She found the room-door of the young person she sought much in the same condition as her own, and she perceived, on effecting a forcible entrance, that the tenant of the room was hastily dressing herself. She wore on her features a terrified expression, and when she saw Lotte she hastily inquired what had brought her there. In a few brief words Lotte explained the condition in which she had been left with the infant. The young woman, with motherly instinct, at once took the child from Lotte, and quickly stilled its cries with nature’s nourishment, but, as she did so, she said with the same alarmed look in her eyes-- “What is the matter with the house?” “The house!” echoed Lotte, every little incident connected with the sounds she had heard during the night in a moment flashed through her mind. “Yes,” returned the young woman, “I seemed to have shaken and rocked in my bed all night; I have hardly slept a wink until I could bear it no--hark!” A low, dull, heavy rumbling crash was plainly heard by both; the house seemed to swing backwards and forwards, both felt a frightful giddiness seize them, the flooring seemed to heave up with them, then followed a dull, heavy boom, and the house seemed to shake to the centre. Both girls shrieked, for they saw fissures like forked lightning run down the walls, and at the same moment loud shouts rose up in the street, mingled with screams and cries for help, and then the house, though quieter, began again its tremulous motion. “Merciful Heaven!” gasped Lotte, “a house has fallen down, and this will fall too!” “Take my child!” cried the woman, hardly able to speak from a faintness which had seized her. “Let us run out into the street!” It was following a natural impulse which had brought every one of the inmates from their beds, and hurried them into the street too. Lotte, still holding the woman’s child, found time to snatch up her mantle and bonnet, before she followed the example of the young woman. A large number of persons had already assembled. Bricklayers were speedily at hand, a strong body of police were soon on the spot, and efforts were at once commenced to clear away the _débris_ of the fallen house, under which many poor creatures were presumed to be buried.