Chapter 4: Mrs. Effingham

COMING out of Church, Dorothea found the hour later than she had expected. A very large number had stayed, and it was already past the Colonel’s dinner-hour.

“I must make haste,” Dorothea thought. As she said the words to herself, she dreamily noted the little old lady in mourning a few yards distant, in the act of crossing the road. “I wonder what her name is? Oh!”

Dorothea’s “Oh!” was hardly audible; indeed she felt rather than said it. The old lady had stepped on a slippery spot, or slide, and went down in a helpless heap, just at the instant that a hansom dashed round the nearest corner.

Whether instinct or thought guided Dorothea, she could not afterwards have told. Before she knew what she meant to do, the deed was done.

Two or three ladies near shrieked; and two or three men not so near rushed towards the scene of action. But shrieks were useless, and the men could not be in time.

To everybody’s amazement, a young placid-looking girl in spectacles, just leaving the gates, flung herself forward, and by an extraordinary exertion of strength dragged the helpless lady aside from almost under the horse’s hoofs. There was not a half-second to spare.

“Did I hurt you? I hope not,” said Dorothea, at the sound of a moan. She knelt in the road still, rather paler than usual, but not excited, trying to hold the other up.

“Oh, my dear!” and the old lady burst into tears.

“Hurt! You’ve saved her life, anyways!” a gruff voice said. “A pluckier thing I never seed!”

Dorothea glanced round, and became aware that her glasses were gone. She had a dim consciousness of a gathering crowd, but to her unaided eyes all beyond a distance of two or three inches was enveloped in mist.

“My spectacles!” she said.

There was a slight laugh, checked instantly, and a gentleman stood by her side, close enough for Dorothea to make out the clerical dress, and a grave rather colourless face.