“When the fire clears this little ridge in front, ma’am.  The Lord have mercy upon us, then, or we must all go!”

“Cannot you, John, try and make your escape, and see what can be done for us and the poor children?”

My eye fell upon the sleeping angels, locked peacefully in each other’s arms, and my tears flowed for the first time.

Mary, the servant-girl, looked piteously up in my face.  The good, faithful creature had not uttered one word of complaint, but now she faltered forth—­

“The dear, precious lambs!—­Oh! such a death!”

I threw myself down upon the floor beside them, and pressed them alternately to my heart, while inwardly I thanked God that they were asleep, unconscious of danger, and unable by their childish cries to distract our attention from adopting any plan which might offer to effect their escape.

The heat soon became suffocating.  We were parched with thirst, and there was not a drop of water in the house, and none to be procured nearer than the lake.  I turned once more to the door, hoping that a passage might have been burnt through to the water.  I saw nothing but a dense cloud of fire and smoke—­could hear nothing but the crackling and roaring of the flames, which were gaining so fast upon us that I felt their scorching breath in my face.

“Ah,” thought I—­and it was a most bitter thought—­“what will my beloved husband say when he returns and finds that his poor Susy and his dear girls have perished in this miserable manner?  But God can save us yet.”

The thought had scarcely found a voice in my heart before the wind rose to a hurricane, scattering the flames on all sides into a tempest of burning billows.  I buried my head in my apron, for I thought that our time was come, and that all was lost, when a most terrific crash of thunder burst over our heads, and, like the breaking of a water-spout, down came the rushing torrent of rain which had been pent up for so many weeks.

In a few minutes the chip-yard was all afloat, and the fire effectually checked.  The storm which, unnoticed by us, had been gathering all day, and which was the only one of any note we had that summer, continued to rage all night, and before morning had quite subdued the cruel enemy, whose approach we had viewed with such dread.

The imminent danger in which we had been placed struck me more forcibly after it was past than at the time, and both the girl and myself sank upon our knees, and lifted up our hearts in humble thanksgiving to that God who had saved us by an act of His Providence from an awful and sudden death.  When all hope from human assistance was lost, His hand was mercifully stretched forth, making His strength more perfectly manifested in our weakness:—­

  “He is their stay when earthly help is lost,
  The light and anchor of the tempest-toss’d.”

There was one person unknown to us, who had watched the progress of that rash blaze, and had even brought his canoe to the landing, in the hope of us getting off.  This was an Irish pensioner named Dunn, who had cleared a few acres on his government grant, and had built a shanty on the opposite shore of the lake.