On ran Mrs. Backhouse, and Milly and her mother followed.

“Better let me carry her up now without moving her,” said Mr. Norton, as Mrs. Backhouse tried to take the little bundle from him.  “She has fainted, I think.  We must get some water at the stream.”  So on he went, with the pale frightened mother, while the others followed.  Aunt Emma had got Tiza and Milly by the hand, and was trying to comfort them.

“We hope she is not much hurt, darlings; the wheel did not go over her, thank God.  It was just upon her when her father backed the horse.  But it must have crushed her I’m afraid, and there was something hanging under the cart which gave her that knock on the temple.  Look, there is one of the men starting off for the doctor.”

Whereupon Tiza, who had kept quiet till then, burst into a loud fit of crying, and threw herself down on the grass.

“Nurse,” called Aunt Emma, “stay here with these two poor little ones while I go and see if I can be of any use.”

So nurse came and sat beside them, and Milly crept up to her for comfort.  But poor little Tiza lay with her face buried in the grass and nothing they could say to her seemed to reach her little deaf ears.

Meanwhile, Aunt Emma hurried after the others, and presently caught them up at a stream where Mr. Norton had stopped to bathe Becky’s head and face.  The cold water had just revived her when Aunt Emma came up, and for one moment she opened her heavy blue eyes and looked at her mother, who was bending over her, and then they shut again.  But her little hand went feebly searching for her mother, who caught it up and kissed it.

“Oh, Miss Emma, Miss Emma,” she said, pointing to the child, “I’m afeard but she’s badly hurt.”

“I hope not, with all my heart,” said Aunt Emma, gently taking her arm.  “But the doctor will soon be here; we must get her home before he comes.”

So on they went again, Mr. Norton still carrying Becky, and Mr. Backhouse helping his wife along.  Mrs. Norton had got the baby safe in her motherly arms, and so they all toiled up the hill to the farmhouse.  What a difference from the merry party that ran down the hill only an hour before!

They laid Becky down on her mother’s bed, and then Aunt Emma, finding that Mrs. Norton wished to stay till the doctor came, went back to the children.  She found a sad little group sitting in the hay-field; Milly in nurse’s lap crying quietly every now and then; Tiza still sobbing on the grass, and Olly who had just crept down from the farmhouse, where he and Charlie had seen Becky carried in, talking to nurse in eager whispers, as if he daren’t talk out loud.

“Oh, Aunt Emma,” cried Milly, when she opened the gate, “is she better?”

“A little, I think, Milly, but the doctor will soon be here, and then we shall know all about it.  Tiza, you poor little woman, Mrs. Wheeler says you must sleep with them to-night.  Your mother will want the house very quiet, and to-morrow, you know, you can go and see Becky if the doctor says you may.”