There was a shriek. The countess looked around,--no child was near. Whence came that cry? It came from under her wheels. At that moment Johannes reached the carriage, seized the leaders by their bridles and brought them to a stand-still. Then he stooped down and drew forth from beneath the carriage a lovely little girl, quite senseless. With a wrathful glance at the countess, he took the child in his arms, and murmured, "I thought so!" "Is she dead?" asked the countess, pale with fright, and restraining with difficulty her excited steeds, while the groom put large stones in front of the wheels. "Not dead," replied Möllner, "but no doubt severely injured." "Oh, what an unfortunate accident!" cried the countess, quite beside herself. "It was no accident!" Johannes rejoined severely, "but the inevitable consequence of your furious driving, Countess Worronska." He leaned against the hedge, and began, without a word more, to look into the extent of the child's injuries. "This is what comes of it," he muttered with suppressed indignation, "'when women hold the reins.'" "Möllner, do not reproach me," the countess entreated. He paid her no attention,--he was engrossed with the poor little victim upon his knee. "Whose child is it?" he asked of her playmates, who came flocking around him. "It is Keller's Käthchen!" cried the children. "Ah, our dear little Käthchen!" Some crowded about Johannes, others ran to the church to call the parents. Johannes tenderly bound up the child's bleeding forehead with his pocket-handkerchief, and carefully drew off its thick jacket to examine the shoulder-joint, that seemed to be broken. The Worronska devoured the scene with envious eyes. She saw him only,--the grace of his motions, the tender care that he lavished upon the child,--and, like molten lava, the words burst from her lips, "Oh that I were that child!" Johannes did not even hear her. "The arm must go," he said sadly. "The best that you can do. Countess Worronska, is to drive to town as quickly as you can and send out Professor Kern or some other skilful surgeon." "Möllner," she implored, "I cannot go until you have forgiven me!" "I pray you make haste, madame. Your first duty is to do what you can for the child; and I am afraid you will suffer from any delay, for there come the enraged peasants." Like bees disturbed in their hive, a menacing, murmuring throng came flocking out of the church, and in a minute surrounded the strangers. "What has happened?" "Who is hurt?" "A child run over!"