endless it looked--lay before her. Nancy felt as helpless as one
bound in a malignant dream. She could make no progress, her most
frantic efforts seemed hardly more than standing still. A sharp
pain sprang to her side, she pressed her hand over it. No use; she
would only kill herself that way, she must get her breath.

Oh, why had she left her--even for a single second! So small, so
gay, so helpless; how could any mother leave her. She had been so
merry, in her high chair at breakfast, she had toddled off so
dutifully with Agnes, when Nancy had left the doleful boys and the
whimpering Anne, to go to the club. The little gold crown of hair-
-the small buckskin slippers--Nancy could see them now. They were
the real things, and it was only a terrible dream that she was
running here through the merciless heat--

"Get in here, Mrs. Bradley!" said a voice. One of the Ingram boys
had brought his roadster to a stop beside her. She turned upon him
her tear-streaked face.

"Oh, Bob, tell me--what's happened?"

"I don't know," he said, in deep concern. "I just happened to go
into the club, and Mrs. Biggerstaff sent me after you! I don't
know--I guess it's not much of a fire!"

Nancy did not answer. She shut her lips tight, and turned her eyes
toward the curve in the road. Even while they rushed toward it, a
great mushroom of smoke rose and flattened itself against the deep
blue summer sky, widening and sinking over the tops of the trees.
Presently they could hear the confused shouts and groans that