"Oh, yes, how splendid!" Maria was delighted. "And to think it was Captain Riccardi all the time. No wonder now that he talks sometimes in his sleep of the little goat-herder and her flowered dress. He was an observer, Roderigo told me. That is a very important thing to be, and he was hidden high up in a tree. That is why you did not see him."

Lucia thought of the telephone.

"I know now, of course, for I saw him climb up it and talk over the wire to the soldiers miles away," she exclaimed. "But how could I think to look in a tree for a soldier?" she laughed.

A bell tinkled, and Maria sprang up.

"I must go, it is my time to be on duty," she said, smoothing her ap.r.o.n and settling her cap importantly, "I will come back when I can."

Lucia looked envious. "Do not be long," she called after her.

She settled back with a sigh, and the little goat came over to have her neck patted. Lucia stroked it lovingly.

"Garibaldi," she said aloud, "we are in a dream, you and I, and soon we will both wake up and find ourselves back in the white cottage with Nana scolding because we are late for supper. And we'll be sorry too, won't we? For that will mean that the beautiful sheets and the soft pillow will vanish the way they do in the fairy tales, and this lovely garden will go too."

"But what if there were another one to take its place?" a voice inquired from the doorway.

CHAPTER XIV

THE FAIRY G.o.dFATHER

Lucia turned and looked up quickly. She was startled and not a little embarra.s.sed at having her confidence overheard.

Through the door that led from the ward the American was pushing a bed on wheels. Lucia had seen that same bed many times before. It had belonged to the old Mother Superior of the convent, and many a bright morning she had seen it out in the garden as she sat at her desk in the schoolroom above.

She looked at the white pillow half expecting to see the old wrinkled face of Mother Cecelia, but instead Captain Riccardi looked up at her and smiled.

"See, I've found you at last," he said, as Lathrop pushed the bed beside Lucia's chair. "I was beginning to think that you were just a dream child, and that I had imagined about the milk."

Lucia laughed gayly.

"No, Captain, that was not a dream, or I hope it wasn't, for if the milk was not real then I dreamed about the pennies, and the sick soldiers never got them."

"Sick soldiers! Did you give away the money?"

"Oh yes, sir, how could I keep it? I did not know you were a Captain, I thought--"

"You thought I was just a poor soldier, eh?"

"Well, yes, if you will excuse me for saying so, I did, but anyway I would not have kept the money."

"Why not?"

"How can you ask? Why because, to accept pay for something--and such a little thing as a pail of milk--"

"Two pails."

"No, just one, they were only half-full, but no matter. I wanted to give away the milk, not sell it, and so I put the pennies in the box at church."

"And all the time I thought you were perhaps buying pretty ribbons with it."

Captain Riccardi shook his head. "But I might have known better."

"Ribbons!" Lucia scorned the idea. "What do I need with such foolishness, with a war going on just under my nose! I had other things to think about, I can tell you, and other ways to spend my pennies."

The Captain looked at her gravely. Then he took her hand and patted it gently.

"You are a brave and true little Italian," he said, "and I can never hope to pay you for what you have done. You will have to look for your reward in your own heart. It ought to be a very happy and contented heart, I should think."

Lucia's cheeks flushed with pride.

"Oh, it is, Captain Riccardi," she said, "it is indeed, and I am quite content. If you heard what I said just now about the dream, you must not think that I don't want to go back to the cottage--I do, and I want so much to see my Beppino and Nana again--only--"

"Tell me about that 'only' Lucia," the Captain said gently. "That is what I want to hear, and then perhaps I will have something to tell you."

"Oh, it is nothing but silliness," Lucia protested, "how can it matter?"

"Never mind, tell me," the Captain insisted.

"But you will laugh. What do big men know of fairy stories!"

"Lots, sometimes--I believe in fairies."

Lucia looked into the smiling eyes incredulously, "You, a soldier!"

"Of course, haven't I told you that I thought you were a fairy when I first saw you, and by the Saints, I did too. Do you know, I first discovered you way down in the valley. You were with your goats. I looked at you through my gla.s.s, and your pretty flowered dress, and the kerchief you wore over your hair, made me think of the little girls at home."

"Ah, then you come from the south, too?" Lucia laughed. "I knew it."

"How do you?" the Captain demanded.

Lucia shook her head sadly.

"No, my mother came from Napoli. When I was a little girl she used to tell me all about the sunshine and the flowers, and the blue water in the bay, and old grandfather Vesuvius always frowning and puffing in the distance. Oh, I tell you I feel sometimes as if I had been there, but, of course, that is silly," she broke off, laughing, "for I have never been away from Cellino."

"Would you like to go away to the south and live there?" Captain Riccardi asked slowly.

"Oh, yes, of course. I dream sometimes that I am a princess and that a wicked fairy has turned me into a goat-herder and forced me to live here where it is so very cold sometimes, and then I wish hard for a good fairy to come and set me free, and take me on a magic carpet away to a garden full of flowers. There," she smiled shyly, "that is what I was thinking of out loud when you came a minute ago."

The Captain did not laugh, except with his eyes. His voice was very grave as he asked.

"Wouldn't a prince or a fairy G.o.dfather do just as well?"

"Oh, yes, even better," Lucia replied seriously.