Mr. Spear looked at her as if he were half daft then, but he answered:  “Yes, ma’am, yes, ma’am, certainly, ma’am, no danger at all, ma’am.”  Then he went on ordering the men:  “A leetle more to the right, boys!  All together!”

“Thank you, my good man, your word is sufficient,” said the boarder, though Mr. Spear did not seem to hear her.

Then she sailed into the house, and her son, her two daughters, and the grandmother after her.  Mrs. Peter Jones and Adeline and her mother went home, but I ventured, since I was a sort of relation, to go in and offer to help Caroline set things to rights.  She thanked me, and said that she did not want any help; when Jacob and Harry came home they would set the furniture in out of the yard.

“I am sorry for you, Caroline,” said I.

“Look at my house, Sophia Lane,” said she, and that was all she would say.  She shut her mouth tight over that.  That house was enough to make a strong-minded woman like Caroline dumb, and send a weak one into hysterics.  It was dripping with water, and nearly all the furniture out in the yard piled up pell-mell.  I could not see how she was going to get supper for the boarders:  the kitchen fire was out and the stove drenched, with a panful of biscuits in the oven.

“What are you going to give them for supper, Caroline?” said I, and she just shook her head.  I knew that those boarders would have to take what they could get, or go without.

When Caroline was in any difficulty there never was any help for her, except from the working of circumstances to their own salvation.  I thought I might as well go home.  I offered to give her some pie or cake if hers were spoiled, but she only shook her head again, and I knew she must have some stored away in the parlor china-closet, where the water had not penetrated.

I went through the house to the front entry, thinking I would go out the front door—­the side one was dripping as if it were under a waterfall.  Just as I reached it I heard a die-away voice from the front chamber say, “My good woman.”

I did not dream that I was addressed, never having been called by that name, though always having hoped that I was a good woman.

So I kept right on.  Then I heard a despairing sigh, and the voice said, “You speak to her, Harriet.”

Then I heard another voice, very sweet and a little timid, “Will you please step upstairs?  Mamma wishes to speak to you.”

I began to wonder if they were talking to me.  I looked up, and there discovered a pretty, innocent, rosy little face, peering over the balustrade at the head of the stairs.  “Will you please step upstairs?” said she again, in the same sweet tones.  “Mamma wishes to speak to you.”

I have a little weakness of the heart, and do not like to climb stairs more than I am positively obliged to; it always puts me so out of breath.  I sleep downstairs on that account.  I looked at Caroline’s front stairs, which are rather steep, with some hesitation.  I felt shaken, too, on account of the alarm of fire.  Then I heard the first voice again with a sort of languishing authority:  “My good woman, will you be so kind as to step upstairs immediately?”