Presently the very thing happened that the old horse had been expecting.  A heavy board fell from the scaffold with a crash, knocking over a ladder, which fell into the street in front of the frightened animal.  Now the old horse had been in several runaways.  Once it had been hurt by a falling ladder, and it had never recovered from its fear of one.  As this one fell just under its nose, all the old fright and pain that caused its first runaway seemed to come back to its memory.  In a frenzy of terror it reared, plunged forward, then suddenly turned and dashed down the street.

The plunge and sudden turn threw the sleeping coachman from the box to the street.  With the lines dragging at its heels, the frightened horse sped on.  The Little Colonel, clutching frantically at the seat in front of her, screamed at the horse to stop.  She had been used to driving ever since she was big enough to grasp the reins, and she felt that if she could only reach the dragging lines, she could control the horse.  But that was impossible.  All she could do was to cling to the seat as the carriage whirled dizzily around corners, and wonder how many more frightful turns it would make before she should be thrown out.

The white houses on either side seemed racing-past them.  Nurses ran, screaming, to the pavements, dragging the baby-carriages out of the way.  Dogs barked and teams were jerked hastily aside.  Some one dashed out of a shop and threw his arms up in front of the horse to stop it, but, veering to one side, it only plunged on the faster.

Lloyd’s hat blew off.  Her face turned white with a sickening dread, and her breath began to come in frightened sobs.  On and on they went, and, as the scenes of a lifetime will be crowded into a moment in the memory of a drowning man, so a thousand things came flashing into Lloyd’s mind.  She saw the locust avenue all white and sweet in blossom time, and thought, with a strange thrill of self-pity, that she would never ride under its white arch again.  Then came her mother’s face, and Papa Jack’s.  In a few moments, she told herself, they would be picking up her poor, broken, lifeless little body from the street.  How horribly they would feel.  And then—­she screamed and shut her eyes.  The carriage had dashed into something that tore off a wheel.  There was a crash—­a sound as of splintering wood.  But it did not stop their mad flight.  With a horrible bumping motion that nearly threw her from the carriage at every jolt, they still kept on.

[Illustration:  “BUT IT DID NOT STOP THEIR MAD FLIGHT”]

They were on the quay now.  The noon sun on the water flashed into her eyes like the blinding light thrown back from a looking-glass.  Then something white and yellow darted from the crowd on the pavement, and catching the horse by the bit, swung on heavily.  The horse dragged along for a few paces, and came to a halt, trembling like a leaf.

A wild hurrah went up from both sides of the street, and the Little Colonel, as she was lifted out white and trembling, saw that it was a huge St. Bernard that the crowd was cheering.