“Oh, I—I had to do it,” gasped Molly through her chattering teeth. “I—I wasn’t brave. I did it—just—because I couldn’t help it.”
“You’re a heroine, Molly, an out-and-out heroine,” cried admiring Pauline, holding the glass to Molly’s lips.
After the motor-man had again mounted his platform, and the crowd gathered about the corner had dispersed, Pauline picked up Molly’s overturned bicycle. Donald’s frocks, broken from their paper wrapping, lay crushed in the mud.
“I’ll carry ’em ’ome for you, Molly,” said Harry, who had come in quest of his runaway sister; “I’ll ’old ’em in both harms.”
And the little English children skipped away, serenely unconscious that Essie had escaped a great peril.
But when their Aunt Ruth had heard the adventure, she ran over to Mr. Rowe’s house with streaming eyes to thank Molly for her noble act.
“I shall be grateful to you, Miss Molly, while the Lord lets me draw breath,” she cried brokenly. “You’ve snatched my little Hessie back from the grave.”
“Molly risked her own life for the child’s, Miss Hobbs,” said Mr. Rowe, stroking Molly’s cheek.
His hand shook like an aspen leaf. The recent exciting incident had unbraced his nerves, and he was days in rallying from it.
“It is too bad about those frocks, mamma,” said Molly that night before going to bed. “The street had just been sprinkled. They’ll all have to be washed.”