“Of course not, of course not!” Both Miss Charity and Mrs. Folger cried, together. Tears were streaming down their cheeks, and Milly was frankly sobbing, her face buried on Mrs. Callie Folger’s shoulder. “When did it happen—and how?” Captain Eric demanded, as soon as he could trust his voice. Several of those about him shook their heads. “No one knows exactly. It broke out in the night—two weeks ago. They had to fight it for three days, a’most.” The confused chorus of answers blurred together in a many-keyed humming. “But we’re already clearing away the wreckage. We’ll be rebuilding soon——” Not beaten, not even faint-hearted in the face of the tragedy that had overtaken them! Erica felt a sudden surge of pride in her island and its people that was like nothing she had ever known before. _This_—not desert islands or strange jungles or Chinese palaces—was romance, the high adventure of life. Meeting defeat, heads up and courage steady, and turning it into victory! She felt very humble and young; a little ashamed, too, of her own childish ambitions. They picked their way up Main Street, and turned south into Orange, leaving here the wreckage and débris behind them. Orange Street was the first familiar thing they had found on the island. Erica would have liked to fall down and kiss the gray-painted shabby front steps of Aunt Charity’s house. Even the blue and adventurous sea she loved was not so beautiful as home. The homeless neighbors who were crowded into the two houses crowded themselves still more closely and made room for the rightful owners. Miss Charity and Erica went back to their own home—there was more room there than in Mrs. Folger’s, when Lis, Milly, Barbee, and Mrs. Folger herself had all to find corners in which to stow themselves and their belongings. Still, crowding seemed a small price to pay for having one’s own roof, untouched by the general calamity, over one’s head again. Captain Eric returned to the _Sea Gull_, and promised to keep Sun Li and his retinue aboard, where they would be comfortable. But the following day the Governor, in his sedan chair, accompanied by Dr. Wu, made a pilgrimage through the ruined town to Orange Street, and spent an hour with Mrs. Folger and Miss Charity in the former’s sitting room. When he departed, he left behind, in the joint custody of these two stunned and feebly protesting ladies, a sum of money that frightened them both rather badly, to be used as they saw fit toward relieving the suffering of those rendered so suddenly homeless. His was among the first, and certainly one of the largest, contributions toward this cause that soon flowed in from all parts of the country and abroad.