Jane Lends A Hand Part 28

A minute later Elise reappeared at the dining room door, bearing a tray well stocked with milk and cookies, and followed by Paul and Aunt Gertrude.

"Dear me, who _can_ be burning rubbish?" exclaimed Mrs. Lambert. "Don't you smell smoke, children?"

"_I_ do, I can tell you," said Carl. "By Jove, Paul, what's going on up in your den?"

Everyone looked up in consternation to the attic window. Paul had closed it before he came down, but smoke was coming slowly from under the pane.

"Good heavens! It couldn't be on fire!" cried Elise. "Run, Paul! Run, _quickly_!"

But Paul had not waited to be urged. Up the stairs he was flying, as fast as his long legs could carry him, followed by Jane, Elise and poor Aunt Gertrude, whose only thought was for Granny, the twins having gone out to play early in the afternoon.

The smoke was already thick on the second floor.

"Elise, you and Aunt Gertrude take Granny downstairs," ordered Paul.

"Jane, you'd better not come up."

"I'll get a bucket of water. Oh, Paul! Your _picture_!"

"Never mind my picture-get the water _quick_!" And Paul dashed on up the stairs.

With his heart in his boots, he made his way to the attic, trying to hold his breath so that he would not swallow the smoke.

It turned out that so far as danger was concerned there was no great cause for excitement. Although the attic was dense with smoke, the cause of it was only a small blaze in the heap of rags near the window, which subsided under two bucketfuls of water.

Jane, whom Paul had not allowed to come up, waited for news at the foot of the stairs; but after he had informed her that the fire was out, she heard nothing more from him. After a few moments she shouted,

"Paul! Are you all right?"

"Oh, _I'm_ all right," replied a m.u.f.fled voice, in a tone of the utmost despair.

"Well, come on down, or you'll smother. What's happened?"

"I'll be down in a second," and then through the fog Paul appeared slowly, descending the stairs carrying a square of canvas.

"Is it hurt?" asked Jane, fearfully. "Oh, Paul!"

"I don't know. I can't see it properly yet." But his face showed that he expected the worst Neither of them spoke a word until they reached the garden again, where Aunt Gertrude pounced upon Jane.

"Oh, _child_, how you frightened me! Paul, are you quite sure everything's all right? Oh, how did it start-was there really a _blaze_?"

"Just a little one-it's all out-a few rags. I pitched 'em all out of the window. I'm-sorry, Aunt Gertrude."

"Oh, my poor boy-your picture!"

"What's the matter? Is it ruined?" asked Carl. Jane said nothing, but stood looking first at her cousin's face, and then at the smoke-begrimed and blistered canvas on which there was hardly a semblance of the picture that had been so nearly completed.

"Yes," said Paul, with the calmness of despair, "it's ruined. It's ruined all right."

No one knew what to say, and a silence followed, until Elise asked timidly if he didn't have time to do another.

"In four days? This is the twenty-seventh. No, cousin, I couldn't-and besides, even if I could, I haven't anything to do it with. So I guess that's all there is to that." He tried to sound cheerful, and turning the picture against the wall of the house, announced that he was going back to the attic to see if everything was calm up there.

"Well, that's pretty hard luck," remarked Carl. "I daresay he's more broken up than he lets on."

Jane had begun to cry, hiding her face in Granny's lap. Not even Paul could have been as cruelly disappointed as she.

"Oh, he _would_ have won something! I'm sure he would have!" she wept, disconsolately. "He said he didn't think so, but he _did_, and I know he did."

"Well, one way or the other, it's his affair," said Carl, "and I certainly don't see why _you_ should be in such a stew over it."

"It is my affair, too," wailed Jane, and at this characteristic remark no one could help smiling.

"Come, Janey, darling, there's no use in taking it so to heart," said Mrs. Lambert, laying her hand softly on the curly head. "We are all dreadfully distressed about Paul, but he has taken his misfortune bravely, and after all he will have many more chances. Elise, isn't that the bell in the bakeshop? Dear me, what can people think coming in to all that smoke. I wonder if it's clearing out at all. Come now, Janey, cheer up."

Janey lifted her face from Granny's knees, and wiped her wet cheeks with the palms of her hands, leaving long smudges.

"There now. We must all be thankful that there was no worse harm done,"

said her mother, kissing her. "Come along, Elise. You come with me too, Janey. We mustn't keep anyone waiting."

But Paul was already in the bakeshop, and was calmly counting out change to the customer when his aunt came in. He was rather pale, but apparently quite cheerful.

"I looked around in the attic again, Aunt Gertrude. It's all right up there," he said calmly, when the customer had gone. "The floor is charred a bit where the rags were-but that's all the damage. And the smoke's clearing out. It didn't get into the rooms much, because all the doors were closed."

"We're all so distressed about your picture, my dear," said Aunt Gertrude, laying her hands on his arm. "I know what disappointment you must feel-and you are a very plucky boy."

Paul looked down at her, started to say something, and then abruptly left the shop.

"But how in the world could it have started?" wondered Aunt Gertrude, for the first time. "He surely couldn't have had the oil-stove lighted in this weather, and it couldn't have started by itself."

But Elise had no theory to offer, and Jane was in tears again, so Aunt Gertrude carried her mystification out to the kitchen, to see whether Anna had returned with the groceries.

At six o'clock, Mr. Lambert returned to the bosom of a highly excited family, and, at the supper table, listened with a peculiarly austere expression to the incoherent accounts of the disaster. Presently, he held up his hand.

"Come, come! I cannot find the beginning or end of all this," he said, and then bending his gaze on Paul, added, slowly and sternly, "there was a fire to-day in the attic-where you, Paul, have been-er-working. So much I understand. But what I do _not_ understand is-how this fire started."

There was a silence. Jane glanced at Carl, and Carl took a drink of water.

"We hear of such things as spontaneous combustion," pursued Mr. Lambert, "but for anything of the sort to take place, there must be certain conditions. I do not imagine that such conditions could exist-in a pile of rags-under an open window. No," said Mr. Lambert, shaking his head, "I must discard that theory."

Again the unpleasant silence followed these remarks. Paul, who had eaten nothing, drummed nervously on the table.

"You were there, were you not? a short time before the fire started?"

inquired Mr. Lambert. "Did you notice any-er-odor of burning?"

"Why, Paul was with me in the kitchen for quite a little while before any of us noticed anything, Peter," Aunt Gertrude broke in innocently.

"Well," said Mr. Lambert, shaking his head, but still keeping his eyes fixed immovably on his nephew's face, "it is quite beyond my comprehension. How anything of the sort-"

At this point Paul suddenly interrupted.