CHAPTER III.
THE FIRE.
The Christmas Eve Festivals were over, and night brooded silently over the great city, until the clock on Trinity rang for twelve; then a few moments went by, and the great bell at Jefferson market sent forth its warning, which was caught up and repeated faster, louder, more excitedly, as the mad flames, let loose from the nooks and corners where they had perhaps been smoldering through the day, leaped high in the air and ran riotously over the roofs of the old tenement house on —— street, where Ruth and Rena lay sleeping. “Fire,—fire,—” how the cry sounded through the streets, and what a clatter the firemen and the people made and how the women shrieked and the children cried, and nobody but God thought of Ruth and Rena. He was taking care of them, and woke Ruth j
