CHAPTER XVI

LADY BOUNTIFUL JUNIOR

Hearing that small, fluty voice Nora sighed with relief.

"Come here, little girl," she said gently. "I won't hurt you."

"Please, I can't. I must run----"

"Oh, no; don't run," begged Nora, as the child showed every sign of escaping. "I am all alone. I just want to talk to you."

"But I must not. I have to run," insisted the other.

"Why?"

"Because----" the voice had dropped many tones.

"Will any one hurt you if you don't?" This was merely a chance question of Nora's. She could not think quickly of just the right thing to say and was anxious to detain the child.

"Yes, no, maybe," a shrug of the small shoulders proclaimed foreign mannerisms. Her dark eyes also bespoke the alien.

"Well, I won't let anyone hurt you," declared Nora bravely. "I'm a Girl Scout, do you know what that means?"

"Yes, I know. It means crazy," promptly replied Lucia.

"Crazy?" Nora was somewhat taken back. Then it dawned upon her that foreigners had a way of saying things--perhaps--"crazy" meant something else to the child.

"Why do you say 'crazy'?" Nora asked next.

"Oh, they dress funny, and they run all over and they climb trees like--crazy," said Lucia. Nora saw she was correct in her free translation. Crazy was a comprehensive term to Lucia.

"Don't you like them, the Scouts?" pressed Nora.

"The little one--I like. The big ones chase me one day," came the indifferent answer. "I have to go, I must run sure now," declared Lucia, putting out her small hands to make a hole in the bushes through which to escape.

"Oh, please don't go yet," begged Nora. "I have just found you and I want to--know you."

"I don't dast," replied Lucia. "I have to hide now," she was getting through the break when Nora took hold of the long skirt. At this Lucia looked around sharply, and her dark eyes flashed dangerously.

"Are you hungry?" Nora asked. This was a tactful thing to ask and offered immediate postponement of flight for Lucia.

"Sure," she replied, beaming. "What you got?"

"Nothing--just now," faltered Nora. "But I can bring you lots of good things. You wait here----"

"Oh, no, I get caught," interrupted the woods wraith. "Then I ketch--it."

Nora was sorely puzzled, but being Nora she had no idea of allowing such an interest to escape. She said next: "If you tell me where to leave things for you, I'll bring them and you can get them when no one is around. Would that be all right?"

"Maybe," replied the exasperating Lucia. "But when you get it?"

"Oh, any time, I live near here and I can just run over and be back before you have to go. Where do you go to?"

"I can't tell," answered Lucia with more foreign tone than she had yet assumed.

"You mean you do not dare tell me where you live?"

"Yes, that's what I mean."

"Why?"

"I don't dast," again came that quaint, childish negative.

"Who would do anything to you?"

"Nick."

If Nora was eager to talk, surely Lucia was determined to be very brief. What could she mean by "Nick."

Again Lucia held the bush back into an open gate. And again Nora tugged at the skirt.

"If I bring you a lovely sweet pie will you come back and talk to me here?" begged Nora.

"Where will you put the pie?"

"Can't you come and get it?"

"I don't know."

It was aggravating. The child seemed purposely obtuse. Nora had an instinctive feeling that somehow she was the object of abuse. Her cringing manner indicated oppression.

"Now, Lucia," she began again, "if you come here every day I'll come all alone, except for Cap, and I'll bring you lovely things to eat. Wouldn't you like that?"

"Sure."

"Then you will come?"

"What time?"

"In the morning--about this time. Would that be all right for you?"

"If Nick is gone."

"Who is Nick?"

"Very bad man. I hate Nick." This last sentence was so purely American, that even Nora guessed the child had come from mixed surroundings. Holding to her shawl Nora could feel, she imagined, a shudder pass through the slim frame at the very mention of the name Nick.

Lucia dragged her scarf off a bush. "I go now," she said with just a tinge of politeness. "You bring pie?"

"Yes, a big pie. Don't forget to come."

"I come--sure."

The queer figure stood for a moment out in the clear sunlight, and Nora had a chance to see her features. She was pretty, strikingly so, in spite of her pinched cheeks and her too lustrous eyes.

"Please--you don't tell anybody?" came the appeal. "I work all day and pull weeds, but like to sleep little bit by the big trees, sometimes."

Then Nora guessed. "You mean you are sick and come here to rest?"

"Please."

"Well, you just come here whenever you want to, Lucia," said Nora with feeling. "The idea of a tiny tot like you working at pulling weeds! And with all those heavy rags on you! It's a shame!" she declared indignantly.

"You don't tell?" the child persisted anxiously.

"No, Lucia. I'll never tell. I have a lot of secrets, and this one I won't even tell Alma."

"Good bye."

Like a frightened animal the waif sped across the field and dodged into the next clump of shrubbery.

"She is afraid of being seen," reasoned Nora. "Who ever saw such a pitiful little thing?"

Then it dawned upon her that Cap had not even sniffed suspiciously.

"Did you like her, Cap?" she asked, patting the patient animal, that all during the broken conversation had lain at Nora's feet without so much as a single growl. "Did you feel sorry for her, too, Cap?"

He may have or there may have been some other reason for his indifference, but now he was willing and anxious to go home. It was lunch time and Cap never needed an announcement.

Nora followed him. She was too astonished to know even what to think. That a little beggar girl should hide in the bushes to rest from hard work!

"I'll bring her the nicest things Vita can bake," she concluded. Then came the thought: How would she get Vita to give her the supplies without making known the use she was to put them to?

Picnics were common. These would surely supply an excuse for carrying out food, and, after all, wouldn't it be a picnic for Lucia?

Nora's heart was fluttering.

"I never knew what a vacation was before," she told Cap. "Here I am having a love of a time and doing things worth remembering."

How different from the fashionable summers she had been accustomed to! Nowadays she hardly had time to look in a glass, and yet she was enjoying every hour. It was like discovering something new continually, and did Nora but know the secret of the adventure it was simply that she was discovering her own resources--she was getting acquainted with Nora Blair.

But miracles are not common, and Nora was not yet completely transformed from a sensitive, secretive girl, to an honest, frank, fearless Girl Scout.

Even the new discovery of Lucia and her sad plight was now locked up in her breast.

But should it have been?