Chippinge Borough by Stanley J. Weyman — Read

Long before this the women of the house had fled, taking Lady Sybil's maid with them. And dreadful as was the situation of those who remained, appalling as were the fears of two of them, they were able to control themselves; the better because they knew that they had no aid but their own to look to, and that their companion was helpless. Fortunately Lady Sybil, who had watched the earlier phases of the riot with the detachment which is one of the marks of extreme weakness, had at a certain point turned faint, and demanded to be removed from the window. She was ignorant, therefore, of the approach of the flames and of the imminence of the peril. She had even, in spite of the uproar, dozed off, after a few minutes of trying irritation, into an uneasy sleep.

Mary and Miss Sibson were thus left free. But for what? Compelled to watch in suspense the progress of the flames, driven at times to fancy that they could feel the heat of the fire, assailed more than once by gusts of fear, as one or the other imagined that they were already cut off, they could not have held their ground but for their unselfishness; but for their possession of those qualities of love and heroism which raise women to the height of occasion, and nerve them to a pitch of endurance of which men are rarely capable. In the schoolmistress, with her powdered nose and her portly figure, and her dull past of samplers and backboards and Mrs. Chapone, there dwelt as sturdy a spirit as in any of the rough Bristol shipmasters from whom she sprang. She might be fond of a sweetbread, and a glass of port might not come amiss to her. But the heart in her was stout and large, and she had as soon dreamed of forsaking her forlorn companions as those bluff sailormen would have dreamed of striking their flag to a codfish Don, or to a shipload of mutinous slaves.