Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. III.djvu/45

Rh Mrs. G. could not be easy to remain; she knew that her husband and her children were at the burning hotel, and thither she hastened.

Octavia Le V. had, before she came to me, given Betsy leave to go out, and had locked her room door. There was no one at the hotel who would take charge of her room, or her effects. Her beautiful wardrobe, her casket containing several hundred dollars, destined to defray the expenses of her journey to Cuba, all would probably become the prey of the flames.

“Ah it is quite certain everything will be destroyed,” said Octavia, and sat tranquilly before me an image of unexampled equanimity. The heart which had bled with the deepest sorrow could not agitate itself by the loss of earthly possessions; the eye which had wept so long over a beloved brother and those dear children, had no tears for worldly adversity. I saw this evidently, whilst Octavia calmly reckoned up everything which her room contained, and which would now be consumed. She said that early that morning she had seen a volume of black smoke issue from under her bed. She gave the alarm, and sent a message to the master of the hotel, who replied, that there was no danger, that the smoke had merely found its way thither through a defect in one of the chimney-flues, and that all would soon be put to rights. An hour afterwards smoke was again in the room; but it seemed perfectly to have subsided when she left the hotel.

I had seen so much of Betsy's precaution and alertness, as well as affection, for her mistress, that I could not but hope for and rely upon her help on this occasion.

“She will soon,” said I, “hear of the fire, and then she will immediately hasten to the place, and find some means of saving your property.”

“She will not hear of it,” said Octavia, “she has gone a long way out of the city. The hotel is built of wood,