oment he turned towards me, and his eyes were bright and shining.

"Una, Una!" he cried, and his arms opened wide and clasped me in a
tight, protecting embrace. There was a crash and a roar, a feeling of
mounting upwards to the skies, and then--darkness!

------------------------------------------------------------------------

The next thing was waking up feeling heavy and dazed, staring stupidly
at my coat-sleeve, and wondering what it was, and how I came to be
wearing such an extraordinary night-gown. Then I tried to move the arm,
and it was heavy and painful; and suddenly I remembered! I was not dead
at all, not even, it appeared, seriously hurt. But the others? I sat
up and glanced fearfully around. The motor lay half-way up the bank, a
shattered mass. Father was on his knees beside mother, who was moaning
in a low, unconscious fashion. Will was slowly scrambling to his feet,
holding one hand to his back. Rachel lay white and still as death, but
her eyes were open, and she was evidently fully conscious. The
chauffeur was dreadful to look at, with the blood pouring from his head,
but he, too, moaned, and moved his limbs. Nobody was dead! It was
almost too wonderful to be believed. I dragged myself across to mother,
and she opened her eyes and smiled faintly at the sight of our anxious
faces. Her dear hands were terribly cut; she winced with pain as she
sat up, and was evidently badly bruised, but it was such bliss to see
her move and hear her speak that these seemed but light things. Father
rushed to the motor, managed to extricate a flask from the scattered
contents, and went round administering doses of brandy to us all in
turns. He had ricked his knee, and hobbled about like an old man. Will
had a bad pain in his back, and a cut on his forehead. My left arm was
useless. Rachel seemed utterly stunned, and unable to speak or move,
and the poor chauffeur was unconscious, having fallen on his head on a
mass of flints.

By this time the accident had become known, and the village people came
trooping up the hill, bringing stretchers with them, for, as they
afterwards explained, they expected to find us all dead. The chauffeur
and Rachel were carried in front, but the rest of us preferred to hobble
along on our own feet, mother leaning on father's arm, Will and I, one
on each side, never once glancing in the other's face. It was awful to
be alive, and to remember that last moment when we had forgo