"I fear you are in part correct, Miss Burton. Instead of deftly
saving the child and taking both it and myself out of harm's way,
after your quiet womanly fashion, I should, no doubt, have 'rushed
upon the horses and seized them by their heads.' But I fear your
striking tableau, in which I appeared to such advantage, would
have been wholly wanting. I could not have stopped the horses in
time; the child would have been run over and killed; the big, fat
coroner would have come and sat on it and have made us all, who
witnessed the scene, swear over the matter; the poor mother would
have gone to the lunatic asylum; the father would have committed
suicide; the nursery maid would have--obtained another place and
been the death of an indefinite number of other innocent babies;
and last, but not least, I should have been dragged and trampled
upon, my legs and arms broken, and perhaps my head, and so you
would all have had to take care of me--and you know a cross bear
is a pleasanter subject than a sick man."
"Oh, what a chapter of horrors!" exclaimed several ladies in chorus.
"Nevertheless, we would have been equal to the occasion, even if
you had been so dreadfully fractured," said Miss Burton.
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