Rupert never was a fellow who could give descriptions of things, and Henrietta was ill for some time after the fire, and Mr. Bustard said she wasn't to talk about it.

 

But she knew I wanted to know, so one day when she was down-stairs with me in the "Miniature Room" (it was at the Castle) she gave me a manuscript book, and said, "It's my diary, Charlie, so I know you won't look. But I've put in two marks for the beginning and end of the bit about the fire. I wrote it that evening, you know, before Mr. Bustard came, and my head got so bad."

 

Of course I made her show me exactly where to begin and leave off, and then I read it. This was it.

 

"It had been a very hot day, and I had got rather a headache and gone to bed. The pain kept me awake a good bit, and when I did get to sleep I think I slept rather lightly. I was partly awakened¹ by noises which seemed to have been going in my head all night till I [137]could bear them no longer, so I woke up, and found that people were shouting outside, and that there was a dreadful smell of burning. I had got on my flannel² petticoat when Rupert called me and said, 'Henny dear, the house is on fire! Just put something round you, and come quickly.'

 

"Just outside the door we met Cook; she said, 'The Lord be thanked! it's you, Miss Henrietta. Come along!'

 

"Rupert said, 'Where's Mother, Cook?'

 

"'Missus was took with dreadful fainting fits,' she replied, 'and they've got her over to the Crown.We're all to go there, and everything that can be saved.'

 

"'Where's Baby,' said I, 'and Jane?'

 

"'With your Ma, miss, I expect,' Cook said; and as we came out she asked some one, who said, 'I saw Jane at the door of the Crown just now.' I had been half asleep till then, but when we got into the street and saw the smoke coming out of the dining-room window, Rupert and I wanted to stay and try to save something, but one of the men who was there said, 'You and your brother's not strong enough to be of no great use, miss; you're only in the way of the engine. Everybody's doing their best to save your things, and if you'll go to the Crown to your mamma, you'll do the best that could be.'

 

"The people who were saving our things saved them [138]all alike. They threw them out of the window, and as I had seen the big blue china jar smashed to shivers, I felt a

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