“Mamma, dearest, I will never let any burglars hurt you or frighten you if I can help it. I do believe I could persuade them not to. I should think even a burglar would listen to reason.”
That made her mamma laugh, so that she forgot all about the burglars and began to get her color again, and it was not long before she was quite gay, and was singing a song she had heard at the opera, while Editha was helping her to dress.
But that very night Editha met a burglar.
Just before dinner, her papa came up from the city in a great hurry. He dashed up to the front door in a cab, and, jumping out, ran upstairs to mamma, who was sitting in the drawing room, while Editha read aloud to her.
“Kitty, my dear,” he said, “I am obliged to go to Glasgow by the ‘five’ train. I must throw a few things into a portmanteau and go at once.”
“Oh, Francis!” said mamma. “And just after that burglary at the Norris’s! I don’t like to be left alone.”
“The servants are here,” said papa, “and Nixie will take care of you; wont you, Nixie? Nixie is interested in burglars.”
“I am sure Nixie could do more than the servants,” said mamma. “All three of them sleep in one room at the top of the house when you are away, and even if they awakened they would only scream.”
“Nixie wouldn’t scream,” said papa, laughing; “Nixie would do something heroic. I will leave you in her hands.”
He was only joking, but Editha did not think of what he said as a joke; she felt that her mamma was really left in her care, and that it was a very serious matter.