One night--when she was a little better than seven year old-- "Oh, ma'am, how I ever lived over that dreadful night I don't know! I was a sinful, miserable wretch not to have starved sooner than let the child go into danger; but I was so sorely tempted and driven to it, God knows!--No, sir! no, ma'am; and many thanks for your kindness, I'll go on now I've begun.

Don't mind me crying; I'll manage to tell it somehow.
The strap--no, I mean the handle; the handle in the strap gave way all of a sudden--just at the last too! just at the worst time, when he couldn't catch her--! "Never--oh, never, never, to my dying day shall I forget the horrible screech that went up from the whole audience; and the sight of the white thing lying huddled dead-still on the boards! We hadn't such a number in as usual that night; and she fell on an empty place between the benches.
I got knocked down by the horses in running to her--I was clean out of my senses, and didn't know where I was going--Yapp had fallen among them, and hurt himself badly, trying to catch her--they were running wild in the ring--the horses was--frantic-like with the noise all round them.

I got up somehow, and a crowd of people jostled me, and I saw my innocent darling carried among them.

I felt hands on me, trying to pull me back; but I broke away, and got into the waiting-room along with the rest.
"There she was--my own, own little Mary, that I'd promised her poor mother to take care of--there she was, lying all white and still on an old box, with my cloak rolled up as a pillow for her.

And people crowding round her.