Lucy had her full share of the sweet womanly instinct of obedience. It is an instinct which is often strong in proportion to the strength of the whole nature. It works so naturally and grows so strong in the fortunate daughter and the happy wife, that it adds terribly to the sense of disaster when the props to which it twines are withdrawn and it is left trailing on the ground. Lucy was quite ready to succumb to the genial domination of this wholesome kindly woman, already her sister in suspense and who might so soon be also her sister in sorrow. She went upstairs before she went away, and came down saying that poor Tom’s mischance with his gas-burner had made her so nervous that she had carefully tested all the upstairs burners. “Somebody else might have made a similar mistake,” said she, “but they are all right.” So she went off, taking Hugh to the Kindergarten on her way. “Let her keep regularly to her teaching,” Mrs. Grant confided to Miss Latimer. “Keep her up to that, I beg you. While we wait, and when waiting ends—as it may—there’s nothing helps us as work does. It’s the blessed will of God that what most of us have to do for our bread is exactly what is good for our souls. The wash-tub and the scrubbing brush have done lots for many a poor body who is left behind. I’ve often seen that. It’s not for any widow’s having to work that I’m ever sorry, but because her work is often so ill-paid, that do what she may, she can’t keep her head above water. But, I say,” she added, sniffing, “don’t you smell the gas very strong again?” “Oh, it is only the remains of the accident in the boy’s bedroom,” answered Miss Latimer. “The breeze through the back windows is driving it more to the front of the house.” Just at that moment Tom’s key was heard turning in the front door, and directly he entered the house he cried— “Why, the smell of gas is worse than ever!” “So I think,” observed Mrs. Grant. Tom rushed to his own bedroom. “There’s something at the bottom of all this,” he said. “I’m as positive that I turned it off the first time as we all are that it was turned off afterwards.” He stamped about the chamber, exclaiming, “It’s all right here now, the gas is turned off, and there’s no smell inside here. The mischief is somewhere else.” “Mrs. Challoner examined all the burners upstairs, and saw that they were right before she went out,” said Miss Latimer. “Perhaps you notice the smell more because you’ve just come in from the fresh air, Tom.” “But I’ve been in the house all the time,” persisted Mrs. Grant. Tom sprang upstairs. “There!” he shouted. “Here’s the staircase burner turned full on, and it’s the same here—and here—and here,” he cried, rushing from chamber to chamber, turning off burners and throwing open windows. “Yes,” he reiterated, as he came downstairs again, “every burner upstairs was started—the only ones turned off are that in my room where the mischief began and in the dining-room where you were sitting.”