It was not a part of their province. But she was going now. Love for her mother gave her courage.

With a defiant look toward the closed door of the householder, she grasped the knob of the cellar door and opened it cautiously, looking down into the forbidding shadows below the steep winding stair.

Cautiously, she ventured down a step or two and peered again. There seemed to be no place to turn on a light. Perhaps a gas jet somewhere, but how was she to find out its location? Could she do anything in the cellar without a light? She remembered a short candle and hurried back to her kitchen for it, a little anxious about having to use it. She must save even a candle and a match if possible. How terrible life was! There were only nine matches left. She had counted them this morning; but she must use one to light the candle, for she could not do a thing to a strange furnace in the dark. Perhaps she could not anyway. She had never made a furnace fire in her life. She had never had to. But now she had to; and what one had to, one always could do, she firmly believed.

With her candle casting flickering shadows before her, she descended at last into that awful cellar. One dismayed glance she cast about her at the dirt and disorder and then walked straight over to the grim rusty object that must be the furnace.

The door stuck, and she had hard work to get it open, but after much tugging, it gave way and revealed a dark cavern inside with just a spunk of fire winking as if it were about to expire. No wonder the house had been cold! And that woman had taken her baby and gone out and left the house cold on purpose! That was probably the truth. She had done it because Mother had not been able to pay last month's rent last night when she had promised!

Phyllis's cheeks burned hotly even while she shivered. To think that they, the Challengers, had come to this, to have a common lodging-housekeeper punish them because they could not pay the rent on time. But, of course, reasoned the honest child, even through her indignation, the woman perhaps needed the money, and it was right that she should be paid. Oh, the shame of being in a position like this, they who had always had plenty and to spare for others!

But there was no time to philosophize. This fire must be made. Even if she had to break up some of the furniture to make it, the room must be warm when Mother came home! And besides, she must hurry. No telling what Mrs. Barkus would do to her when she returned if she found out she was daring to enter the sacred precincts of the cellar and make a fire in her absence.

She held the candle high and looked around. There were some old newspapers piled in one corner, but they looked damp, for there was water on the floor of the cellar. No wonder such a musty smell came up the register!

There were a few old boxes and crates scattered untidily around, and a rusty ax lay on the floor. Dared she?

She put the candle carefully down on the floor and lifted the ax gingerly. She approached a box and brought the ax down on it with a crash and exulted in the splintering ruin that ensued. The box didn't look very substantial. It was perhaps an orange or peach crate, but the splinters would be just the thing to catch fire from that spunk of brightness just winking out. She laid down the ax and gathered a handful of splinters, stuck them carefully down into the fire, and was heartened to see them catch and blaze up. She applied a few more and had a neat little blaze going.