"She will be all right now, I think, Vita," said Miss Beckwith. "She just had a spell of hysteria, didn't she?"

"Oh, she have a fit very bad," whispered the woman. "I run for doctor, quick, but he is no place----" her voice droned off into a low sound of foreign words, lamentation and wailings.

"Why was she shut up there?" asked Nora.

"She beg for dark--she never go in light when fit comes," Vita managed to make them understand. "I always hide her--she runs from Nick like anything. But he no hurt her, never. Just one time he scare her. She always cry so much he t'ink she might get better, and he scare her.

Lucia run away and come to Vita, every time."

"He didn't really hurt her," Miss Beckwith was both asking Vita and explaining to the girls. "Hysterical children must have a dread of something, and I suppose she seized on that."

Lucia now sat up and looked about her. All the fear had left her, and her black eyes shone with relief.

"She's all right now, aren't you, Lucia?" Thistle ventured to ask. The other girls were still spellbound.

"Lovely," replied the child, actually rubbing her brown hand on the soft couch cover almost as if she were saying, "Nice! Nice!"

"There come Cousin Jerry and Cousin Ted!" exclaimed Nora. "I'll bring them right up."

"What Mrs. Jerry say?" asked Vita, anxiously.

"Oh, that will be all right, Vita," said Nora, running along. "She'll understand everything."

It is marvelous what sympathy can explain. No need for words to fill out the gaps.

"Well, what a reception!" exclaimed the surprised Ted. "I never expected such a party as this." Her eyes fell upon Lucia. "A refugee?" she asked kindly.

"Vita's little girl, Cousin Ted," said Nora, promptly. "We found her--sick." She did not say where.

"She is in good hands now, I am sure," said Mrs. Manton, glancing around at the patrol. "We were detained with our fractious car--should have been home ages ago. Did you need anything? Have you had a doctor?"

"She seemed merely hysterical," explained Becky. "I don't think she needs a doctor tonight. She will probably sleep well after the excitement--and exhaustion," she added in an undertone.

"Well, of all things," exclaimed Mrs. Manton, suddenly getting a good look at Nora. "Have you been having a masquerade?"

"A little Scout party," Miss Beckwith replied, to save Nora embarra.s.sment. "This has been an eventful evening."

"Must have been," agreed the hostess. "Shall we all go down and leave the child to rest?" she proposed.

"_We_ must go," a.s.sured the leader. "It is not ten o'clock, I hope?"

"No, and we'll run you over in our car--if the car will run. Mr. Manton is out tinkering with it. That's how he missed the excitement," Ted explained.

Nora hung back with Lucia. She felt she had found her after so much anxiety, she was almost afraid the child would be spirited away if she should lose sight of her now.

"How nice!" said Vita, and the relief in her own voice proved that the big woman had been suffering no little anxiety, herself.

"I go home now, Vita," said Lucia, humbly. "I'm sorry, Vita."

"Oh, you don't have to go home, Lucia," Nora hurried to interrupt. "You can stay right here. You don't want to go hide in the dark any more, do you Lucia?"

"But I don't want to make the trouble."

"She is so good when the fit is gone," said Vita, affectionately. "Poor Lucia, she can no help it."

"Of course, she can't. I'll tell you, Vita, we'll ask Cousin Ted and I'm sure she'll let us fix Lucia up in that nice attic bed. Would you like that, Lucia?" enthused Nora.

"She love the attic," said Vita. "She come every time, and I must hide her. But I no like to make the bother----"

"And that was why you kept it secret!" said Nora. "Well, Vita, I did think you were--mean," she paused to soften the word, "but now I know why. And I am so glad to find Lucia again. You see, I knew her before."

"You bring her the cakes----"

"And you knew that, too?" Nora's secrets were fast evaporating. "Well, at any rate, Vita, you gave me a nice tin box and all the good things you could make, so I won't blame you. I'll run along and ask Cousin Ted about the attic. Dear me! What a blessing the girls came over with me!

We might have been going on this way--for weeks and not have found out,"

she added. "But the girls have to hurry off; it is getting time to answer the night roll call. I'll be back in a minute, Vita," she was talking fast. "Don't let Lucia move until I tell you," she warned.

"All right, little Nora," replied Vita fondly. "I have two little girls, now; yes, Lucia?"

"The girls have to leave without hearing this whole wonderful story, Nora," said Ted, as they crowded out to the car, "but I have asked them to come over tomorrow. They will die of curiosity in the meantime if Miss Beckwith does not keep them too busy to get into such mischief,"

added the young woman jocularly.

"Oh, Nora!" called out Wyn, "you come right over about daylight, will you? We'll leave a tent flap loose and you can crawl in. I would have nervous prostration if I had to wait until after inspection to hear the sequel. Good night!"

"Good night! Good night! everybody!" went up the customary shout, and when the reliable little car, so recently called fractious by its owner, rumbled out into the roadway, the Scouts were actually singing their camp song.

How wonderful to be girls! And how wonderful to be Girl Scouts!

CHAPTER XXIV

FULFILLMENT

"Of course, she'll come over. Didn't I say I'd leave a flap up?" asked Wyn. It was so early that the very Chickadees, after whom the patrol had been named, were still asleep in their own tree-top scout tents.

"As if she could get out of bed----"

"Why couldn't she? After last night I wonder if she will ever feel safe in bed again. Seems to me," said the incorrigible Wynnie, "she could do lots more good sitting up--raiding attics and things like that."

"But Chicks," said Thistle from a rumpled pillow, "isn't that child a dream?"

"You mean didn't that child dream----"

"No, I do not. I think she is the most adorable thing. Why, she looks exactly like a painting we have----"

"There--there," soothed Treble.