Page:Cornelia Meigs--The Pool of Stars.djvu/105

 ought to be a very great thing when it is done."

"I think," began Betsey, "that—oh, look, look!"

She stood transfixed with dismay, staring at something behind him. David gave one glance and knew better than to pause and look again.

"Quick," he cried, and, seizing her hand, dragged her, almost headlong, across the open space and up another slope of sliding bricks.

The old chimney, split by the lightning and weakened by fire and frost, was ready to tumble at the slightest shock and had received its final impetus from the collapse of the neighboring wall. As Betsey looked at it the whole mass was tottering and, but for David's quickness, would have engulfed them both. As it was they were nearly smothered by the cloud of dust and crumbled mortar. Blinded and breathless, they scrambled out of the hollow to safety. David's dusty face had not lost its cheerful smile, but he spoke with great decision.

"I was very wrong to let you go in there," he said. "I might have seen that the whole place is shaky and that the walls have been collapsing, little by little, for years. We will not go near this end of it at least, again."

Elizabeth knelt by the pool to wash the dust from her face and hands, while David, having done the same, went to fetch his geometry book.