They were shaking from top to toe, and their glossy black breasts were streaked and spotted with foam. Polly stroked and patted their necks, and said, "Be aisy now, me b'ys--be aisy!" and led them to the hitching-post and made them fast. Then she lifted out the little girl, whose beautiful sky-blue hat was all smashed in at the crown, and taking the poor lady in her arms as tender as though she was a baby, sat her on the bench under the maple. The lady lay back so white and still that I thought she was going to faint, like Miss Clarissa Lovett, that boarded with us last summer, did once, because of Tom's putting a mouse in her work-box. Polly was dreadfully scart, and fanned her with a breadth of her new apron. "Run, darlint," said she to me, "run for yer life and fetch a dipper of water!" [Illustration: "RUSHING INTO THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD, SHE RAPIDLY OPENED AND SHUT THE UMBRELLA."] But the lady smiled, and said: "No, don't, my dear. I shall be better presently." And sure enough she was, and in a little while she let Polly help her to the house; and when she had drunk a tumbler of water, and had lain on the sitting-room lounge for a spell, she appeared as smart as ever. The horses were some new ones of Judge Gillis's, she said, and were very skittish. The judge was going to drive her to Mrs. Colonel Givens's, a mile beyond the village; but as he was stepping into the buggy he noticed there was no whip, so he went to the barn to get one. While he was gone, the horses shied at something and started "two-forty." "And, you good, noble girl, but for you we certainly should have been killed," she ended, squeezing Polly's hand. Polly grew as red as fire, and said she "must be afther a-seein' about supper." At that moment Ma came in the kitchen-way, and, hearing voices in the sitting-room, walked in, very much surprised, because the sitting-room was generally kept shut, on account of the flies and the new window-shades. She was more surprised on hearing what had been going on, and said the lady must stay to supper, and that afterward Pa would drive her into the village. And she blew the horn for Tom, and told him to saddle Jerry and ride to Judge Gillis's and say to the folks that the lady and little girl were all right, and at our house, and that Pa would bring them home after supper. Then Ma hurried to the pantry to open some of her best preserve-jars, and Polly to the barn to milk the cows, and I was left to entertain the lady. I couldn't think how to, exactly, and I thought it wouldn't do for her to talk, being still so pale; so I laid the photograph-album on the corner of the table nearest to her, and asked her little girl if she didn't want to go to the barn and see my four cunning little Maltese kittens. "Yes, I would, dear," said the lady. "Go with the little girl." So she put her hand in mine, and we scampered down the hill to the barn as tight as we could go.