THE LADIES’ FLORAL CABINET. 
19 
nerves unsteady, added to which, only a moment before, 
he had caught a glimpse of the mischievous Kitty in the 
midst of a lively flirtation. As a consequence, he never 
noticed how dangerously near he held the torch, and 
among the wood there chanced to be some soft pine splin¬ 
ters which caught fire unseen by any one. Laura felt a 
sudden blaze curling up about her ankles, but did not 
move or change the expression of her face. Should a 
martyr scream out or jump down, like a silly school-girl ? 
Now, Laura felt, was the time for real heroism. But Tom 
fancied he smelt something burning, and whispered 
softly, “Are you on fire, Laura?” But Laura did not 
move, and he concluded he was mistaken. 
There was a hitch about the pulleys and the curtain 
would not come down, so that this tableau lasted much 
longer than any previous one, and when the curtain at 
last consented to fall the smell of burning cotton and 
woolen was all through the house. There followed the 
usual screams from the silly part of the audience, and a 
rush toward the door on the part of some, and toward the 
stage on the part of others whose room-mates or intimates 
were behind the scenes. Professor Fowler sprang upon 
a seat and demanded order in the authoritative tones 
which none ever disobeyed, while the other teachers hast¬ 
ened to render assistance behind the scenes. 
At the moment the curtain descended the fire had com¬ 
municated itself to Laura’s white robe, which blazed up 
all around hpr in an instant. Fortunately some one had 
left near-by a heavy woolen shawl, which Tom, having 
hastily flung his torch into the pail of water, snatched, and 
wrapping it around his cousin, had the fire nearly smoth¬ 
ered by the time the teachers appeared. Laura had been 
perfectly calm throughout the whole affair, and had her¬ 
self assisted in smothering the flames. 
“ How brave she was ! ” exclaimed one. 
“ She never cried out at all!” declared another. 
“ The real Joan could not have been braver, ” said a third. 
“ Are you burned at all, Miss Laura?” asked Prof. Ryder. 
For answer Laura held out her hands, smiling as she 
did so, although she was suffering intense agony, for not 
only had she burned her hands while helping to smother 
the fire, but her ankles were severely burned. 
“ How can you stand there and smile with such hands 
as those ! ” exclaimed one. 
“ I never saw such heroism ! ” asserted another. 
“You dear, brave girl!” cried a third, and Laura was 
surrounded by an admiring group until the Preceptress 
sent them all away and herself took Laura to her room, 
sent for the doctor, and stayed to bandage her wounds and 
be assured that they were not serious. But Kitty Dem- 
ing went straight to Tom Rollins, who had stepped aside 
and was overwhelmed with sorrow and shame at having 
caused his cousin such pain and injury, and demanded to 
see his hands. Then she tore her dainty little handker¬ 
chief and wrapped up his hands, and, for the second time 
that day, said: “Come home with me, Tom; mother 
will know what to do for you.” 
The next day Laura Edmonds sat in an easy-chair 
with her bandaged hands in her lap and her bandaged 
ankles resting on a chair in front of her. There was a 
knock at the door, and in answer to Laura’s “ Come in,” 
Kitty Deming entered, bringing a large basket. Kitty 
nodded to her disabled friend, and proceeded to unload 
her basket. There was a bowl of steaming oatmeal, a 
pitcher of cream, a pail of chicken broth, oranges, and a 
roll of soft bandages and a bottle of sweet oil. 
“How good you and your mother are! ” said Laura. 
“My mother is good,” replied Kitty, “but I’m not; I 
am cross as I can be ; I feel real hateful and ugly.” 
“ What is the trouble, Kitty ? ” asked Laura. 
“You’re the trouble,” said Kitty, shortly; “I’m pro¬ 
voked with you for making such a goose of yourself last 
night! Oh, you needn’t put on a look of offended dig¬ 
nity ; I know you think yourself a heroine, and every 
sentimental gushing idiot in school is calling you brave, 
and heroic, and all that sort of nonsense, but common¬ 
place people like me can’t see any heroism in such actions. 
All I see is that you deliberately allowed yourself to burn 
and get laid up for a week or two and upset your studies, 
and are running up doctor’s bills that you know your 
father can’t afford to pay, and making your friends a good 
deal of work and anxiety, to say nothing of being the 
means of disabling Tom and causing him pain and inter¬ 
rupting his studies when his father is making such sacri¬ 
fices to educate him; his hands are much worse than 
yours. If that is heroism, save me from being a heroine ! 
give me a grain of common sense before all the heroics 
in history or fiction. A girl of common sense would 
have cried out, or at least have told Tom that she was 
burning when he asked, and saved so much trouble for 
other people even if she didn't care for her own skin! ” 
and Kitty stopped for breath. 
Poor Laura! She had really believed that she had dis¬ 
played a great deal of bravery and heroism, but in the 
light of Kitty’s uncompromising sense, her conduct all at 
once assumed an entirely different aspect, and she was 
overwhelmed with shame and mortification. An added 
sting lay in the fact that, fond as she was of Kitty, she 
had always considered herself greatly superior to her 
friend in intellect, and had looked down upon her from 
some indefinite higher plane to which Kitty’s volatile 
mind could never climb. Now Kitty’s penetration had 
seen through her inmost motives and Kitty’s common 
sense had made her own fine sentiments and heroic 
aspirations shrink into folly and selfishness. 
Great tears began to roll down Laura’s cheeks, and 
instead of the haughty defense which Kitty had prepared 
to meet, she said, brokenly : 
“ Oh, Kitty ! I’m so sorry! I never thought how fool¬ 
ish it would seem.” 
Kitty was disarmed at once, and proceeded to make 
her peace; and there was after this an added tenderness 
in her affection for Laura, and an added respect in 
Laura’s feeling for Kitty, which deepened the friendship 
between the two. 
All this was years ago, and to-day Kitty, now Mrs. 
Rollins, keeps among her choicest bric-a-brac a dried and 
shrunken turkey’s claw. Tom’s mother-in-law never be¬ 
trayed him, and Kitty has always supposed that Tom laid 
that turkey at her mother’s door simply as a delicate 
(though fleeting !) tribute to his love for herself! 
Susie A. Bisbee. 
