I'm not going to sneak off and leave you,--not any such thing!" Whether Gypsy would have kept this resolve--and very like Gypsy it was, to make it--when the flames were actually upon her; whether, indeed, she ought to have kept it, are questions open to discussion.

Something happened just then that saved the trouble of deciding.

It was nothing but a clap of thunder, to be sure, but I wonder if you have any idea how it sounded to those two girls.
It was a tremendous peal, and it was followed by a fierce lightning-flash and a second peal, and then by something that the girls stretched out their arms to with a great cry, as if it had been an angel from heaven.

A shower almost like the bursting of a cloud,--great, pelting drops, hissing down upon the flaming tree; it seemed like a solid sheet of water; as if the very flood-gates of heaven were open.
The cruel fire hissed and sputtered, and shot up in angry jets, and died in puffs of sullen smoke; the glaring bridge blackened slowly; the pine-tree, swayed by the sudden winds, fell _into_ the forest, and the ravine was safe.

The flames, though not quenched,--it might take hours to do that,--were thoroughly checked.
And who was that with white, set face, and outstretched hands, springing over the smoking logs, leaping down into the ravine?
"Oh, Tom, Tom! Oh, father, here we are!".