But for an accident we might have been strangers still, and I would not have troubled the world with this old peasant's history. I was walking home one morning from Leamington, whither I had gone to buy some fresh colours and a sketch-book, when I heard in a hollow behind me a vehicle of some sort coming along the road at a great pace. Almost immediately a dog-cart driven tandem overtook and passed me. It contained a stout, rather blotched-looking man, who might be any age from thirty-five to fifty, and a groom. Just beyond the road took rather a sharp turn to the right, dipping into another hollow, and the dog-cart had hardly disappeared round the corner when I heard a shrill scream of pain, followed by oaths, loud and deep, uttered in a harsh, metallic, but husky voice. I ran forward and immediately came upon Thomas Wanless's little girl lying moaning in the road, white and unable to move, grasping a bunch of wild flowers in one hand. Half-a-crown lay amongst the dust near her, and the dog-cart was dashing over the crest of the further slope, apparently on its way to the Grange. Without pausing to think, but cursing the while the heartlessness of those who seemed to think half-a-crown compensation enough for the injury done to this little one, I flung my parcel over the hedge, and gathering the half-fainting child as gently as I could in my arms, hurried with her to her grandfather's cottage. It was a good half-mile walk, partly through the village. The child was heavy, and I arrived hot and out of breath, followed by several matrons who had caught sight of me as I passed by, and who stood round the door with anxious faces. A milkman's cart met me on the way, and I begged its occupant to drive with all speed to Warwick for a surgeon, as the child had been run over. The man answered yes, and went.