Nan darted deeper among the shrubs and bushes for the young woman passed so close that she could have touched her. The gypsy girl remained in hiding and watched the small children who looked strange to her with their flaxen hair and pink cheeks used as she was to the dark-eyed, black-haired, fox-like little gypsies.
The baby boy was a chubby laughing two-year-old, “Birdie,” as he called his sister, played with him for a time on the grass in front of their cottage. At last, wearying of this, she said—“Now Bobby, you sit right still like a mouse while Birdie goes and fetches out her dollie.”
Springing up, the little girl ran indoors. A second later a butterfly darted past the wee boy. Gurgling in delight, he scrambled to his feet and toddled uncertainly after it. Out through the partly-open iron gates he went, and then, tripping, he sprawled in the dust of the roadway. At that same instant Nan heard the chugging of an oncoming machine and leaping from her hiding place, she darted through the gates and into the road. A big touring car was swerving around a corner. The frightened baby, after trying to scramble to his feet, had fallen again.
Nan, seizing him, hurled him to the soft grass by the roadside. Then she fell and the machine passed over her. The “grand ladies” had returned.
The car stopped almost instantly, and the chauffeur lifted the limp form of the gypsy girl in his arms.
“I don’t think she’s dead, Miss Barrington,” he said, “and if you ladies wish I’ll take her right to the county hospital as quickly as I can.”
The older woman spoke coldly. “No, I would not consider that I was doing my duty if I sent her to the county hospital. You may carry her into the house, Martin, and then procure a physician at once.”
“But, Miss Barrington, she’s nothing but a gypsy, and yours the proudest family in all San Seritos or anywhere for that,” the man said, with the freedom of an old servant.
Then, it was that the other lady spoke, and in her voice was the warmth of pity and compassion.
“Of course we’ll take the poor child into our home,” she said. “She may be only a gypsy girl, but no greater thing can anyone do than risk his own life for another.”