“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.

Mr. Hewland came back and brought two candles, which he had with difficulty procured from a hotel.  He brought word, also, that the fire was under control; that they need feel no more alarm.

And so this second night of peril and disaster passed painfully and slowly by.

But on the Monday, the day in which Boston was like a city given over into the hands of a host,—­when its streets were like slow-moving human glaciers, down the midst of which in a narrow channel the heavier flow of burdened teams passed scarcely faster forward than the hindered side streams,—­Aunt Blin lay in the grasp and scorch of a fire that feeds on life; wasting under that which uplifts and frenzies, only to prostrate and destroy.

I shall not dwell upon it.  It had to be told; the fire also had to be told; for it happened, and could not be ignored.  It happened, intermingling with all these very things of which I write; precipitating, changing, determining much.