They had not been far off. In a few more minutes Mrs Moss was reviving on the sofa, and alone with her daughter.
“Milly, dear, this has been a great surprise; indeed, I might almost call it a shock,” she said, in a faint voice.
“Indeed it has been, darling mother,” returned Milly in sympathetic tones, as she smoothed her mother’s hair; “and it was all my fault. But are you quite sure you are not hurt?”
“I don’t feel hurt, dear,” returned the old lady, with a slight dash of her argumentative tone; “and don’t you think that if I were hurt I should feel it?”
“Perhaps, mother; but sometimes, you know, people are so much hurt that they can’t feel it.”
“True, child, but in these circumstances they are usually unable to express their views about feeling altogether, which I am not, you see—no thanks to that—th–to John Barret.”
“Oh! mother, I cannot bear to think of it—”
“No wonder,” interrupted the old lady. “To think of my being violently knocked down twice—almost three times—by a big young man like that, and the first time with a horrid bicycle on the top of us—I might almost say mixed up with us.”
“But, mother, he never meant it, you know—”
“I should think not!” interjected Mrs Moss with a short sarcastic laugh.