the main body were quite out of their reach, and everybody tried to rush scrambling into the narrow centre aisle, choking up the door, which was a complicated trap meant to keep out draughts.  We in the gallery tried vainly to assure them that the only danger was in the crowd, and the clergyman in his desk, sure that was the chief peril, at any rate, went on waving and calling to them to wait; but the cries and shrieks drowned everything, and there was a most terrible time, as some 600 people jammed themselves in that narrow space, fighting, struggling, fainting.

You may suppose how we watched our girls.  They had let themselves be thrust up to the end of the seat by later comers:  Avice the innermost.  We saw them look up to us, with white faces.  To our joy, Avice seemed to understand our signs and to try to withhold Isa, but she was too wild with fright not to try to push on to the end of the pew.  Avice held her dress, and kept her back.  Then, as the crowd swayed, the two girls stood on the seat, and presently I saw Avice bend down, and take from some one’s arms a little child, which she seated on the edge of the pew, holding it in her arms, and soothing it.  I don’t know how long it all lasted, Horace says it was not ten minutes before he had got men and tools to break down the obstruction at the door, and pull out the crowded, crushed people, but to us it seemed hours.  They were getting calmer too in the rear, for many had followed the lead through the vestry door, and others had found out that there was no fire at all.

Wonderful to tell, no one was killed.  There were some broken arms, three I think, and some bad bruises.  Many people were fainting, and much hurt by the horrible heat and crush, but when at last the way was free, we saw Horace come into the church, looking about in great anxiety for the two girls, whom he had failed to find in the trampled multitude.  Then Avice came up to him, with the child in her arms, and Isa followed, quite safe!  How thankful we all were!  Avice says she remembered at once that she had been told of the American fireman’s orders to his little girl always to keep still in such an alarm, for the crowd was a worse peril than the fire.  By the time we had come down the stairs and joined them, the child’s father had come for it in great anxiety, for its sister had been trampled down fainting, and had just only revived enough to miss it!  I shall never forget what it was to see people sucked down in that surging mass, and the thankful thrill of seeing our girls standing there quietly with the child between them, its little fair head on Avice’s breast.  We went home quietly and thankfully.  Horace took Avice to the hotel that he might explain all to her parents, and let them know how well she had behaved; Isabel was shaken and tearful, and her voice sounded weak and nervous as she bade her cousin good-night and embraced her with much agitation.  So I went to her room to