"O, Mr. Sparrow isn't any good!" cried Bel, impetuously. "If you wouldn't mind seeing whether Mr. Hewland is up-stairs?" Miss Smalley did not mind that at all; and though numbly aggrieved at the reflection upon Mr. Sparrow, went up and knocked. Bel heard Morris Hewland's spring upon the floor, and his voice, as he asked the matter. Heavy with fatigue, he had not roused till now. As he came down, five minutes later, and Bel Bree met him at the door, the gas suddenly went out, and they stood, except for the flame outside, in darkness. In house and street it was the same. Miss Smalley called out that it was so. "The stable light is gone," she said. "Yes,--and the lights down Tremont Street." Then that fearful robe of fire, thick sown with spangling cinders, seemed sweeping against the window panes. Only that terrible light over all the town. "O, what does it mean?" said Bel. "It is Chicago over again," the young man answered her, with a grave dismay in his voice. "See there,--and there!" said Miss Smalley, at the window. "People are up, lighting candles." "But Aunt Blin is sick!" said Bel. "We must take care of her. What shall we do?" "I'll go and send a doctor; and I'll bring you news. Have you a candle? Stop; I'll fetch you something." He sprang up-stairs, and returned with a box of small wax tapers. They were only a couple of inches long, and the size of her little finger. "I'll get you something better if I can; and don't be frightened." The great glare, though it shed its light luridly upon all outside, was not enough to find things by within. Bel took courage at this, thinking the heart of it must still be far off. She gave one look into the depth of the street, shadowed by its buildings, and having a strange look of eerie gloom, even so little way beneath that upper glow. Then she drew down the painted shades, and shut the sky phantom out. "Mr. Hewland will come and tell us," she said. "We must work." She heated water and got a bath for Aunt Blin's feet. She put a cool, wet bandage on her head. She mixed some mustard and spread a cloth and laid it to her chest. Miss Bree breathed easier; but the bandage upon her head dried as though the flame had touched it. "I'll tell you what," said good, inopportune Miss Smalley; "she's going to be dreadful sick, I'm afraid. It'll be head and lungs both. That's what my sister had." "_Don't_ tell me what!" cried Bel, irritatedly. But the doctor told her what, when he came. Not in words; doctors don't do that. But she read it in his grave carefulness; she detected it in the orders which he gave. People brought up in the country,--where neighbors take care of each other, and where every symptom is talked over, and the history of every fatal disorder turns into a tradition,--learn about sickness and the meanings of it; on its ghastly and ominous side, at any rate.