"Then we're going to be gipsies, aren't we?" exulted Junior.

His mother had straightened her hair, and turned the box upon
which she sat for the better accommodation of Anne and herself.
Now she was placidly watching the flames devour Holly Court; the
pink banners that blew loose in the upswirling gray fumes, and the
little busy sucking tongues that wrapped themselves about an odd
cornice or window frame and devoured it industriously. She saw her
bedroom paper, the green paper with the white daisies--Bert had
thought that a too-expensive paper--scarred with great gouts of
smoke, and she saw the tangled pipes of her own bathroom curve and
drop down in a blackened mass, and all the time her arm encircled
Anne, and the child's heart beat less and less fitfully, and
Nancy's soul was steeped in peace.

"You'll get some insurance, Bert?" asked one of the many
neighbours who were hovering about the family group, waiting for a
suitable moment in which to offer sympathy. The first excitement
of the reunion over, they gathered nearer; Fielding and Oliver
Rose coatless and perspiring from their struggles with the
furniture, a dozen others equally concerned and friendly.

"Fourteen thousand," grinned Bert, "and I carry a thirteen-
thousand loan on her!"

"Gosh, that is tough luck, Brad! She's a dead loss then, for she's
gone like paper, and there won't be ten dollars' worth of salvage.
You had some furniture insurance?"