Then the procession passed on, and Emily resumed her journey with the perambulator. Not far up the street she remembered that she wanted some tobacco for her father, and that she had passed the shop. She left the perambulator where it was for a few minutes, till she should run back and make the little purchase.
As she stood at the counter she heard the quick rattle of wheels, and a noise of galloping hoofs, and then the shout of “Horse ran off!” fell upon her car.
“Oh, the baby!” cried Emily, and dashed out of the shop.
The perambulator, with the child in it, laughing and blinking in the sunshine, stood right in the track of danger.
But Emily, heedless of everything except the desire to save her brother, rushed on towards it. Nearer and nearer came the horse. People shrieked as they saw the girl at the perambulator.
One push sent it clear away from under the very hoofs of the fear-maddened horse. Next moment, Emily herself was down.
Then the sorrowful procession.
Two hours after Lizzie and Tom had seen Emily borne by kind and loving hands into the humble cottage that had been her home, the doctor came out.
He shook his head sadly.
“Go home, my friends,” he said, “it is all over.”