“Nobody hurt us, Nixie,” she said. “We are all right, aren’t we?”
“Yes, mamma dear,” said Editha.
She did not want to startle her just then, so she said nothing more, and she even said nothing all through the excitement that followed the discovery of the robbery, and indeed, said nothing until her papa came home, and then he wondered so at her pale face, and petted her so tenderly, and thought it so strange that nothing but her treasures had been taken from upstairs, that she could keep her secret no longer.
“Papa,” she cried out all at once in a trembling voice, “I gave them to him myself.”
“You, Nixie! You!” exclaimed her papa, looking alarmed. “Kitty, the fright has made the poor little thing ill.”
“No, papa,” said Editha, her hands shaking, and the tears rushing into her eyes, she did not know why. “I heard him, and—I knew mamma would be so frightened,—and it came into my mind to ask him—not to waken her,—and I crept down stairs—and asked him;—and he was not at all unkind though he laughed. And I stayed with him, and—and told him I would give him all my things if he would not touch yours nor mamma’s. He—he wasn’t such a bad burglar, papa,—and he told me he would rather be something more respectable.”
“To think of her risking her dear little life to save me!”
And she hid her face on her papa’s shoulder.
“Kitty!” papa cried out. “Oh, Kitty!”