“Poor, poor boy!” Nan thought with a rush of tenderness. The gypsy girl always had the same pity when she saw anything that was wounded, and it was this tenderness in her nature that had compelled her to remain in the caravan for so long to protect the little cripple Tirol.
The sick lad, believing that a cluster of pepper berries had but fallen of its own accord once more leaned back and closed his eyes, but he opened them almost instantly and again looked about. From somewhere overhead he heard a sweet warbling bird-song. “Perhaps a mocking bird,” he was thinking when the note changed to that of a meadowlark.
Gazing steadily at the tree ahead of him, he saw a gleam of red and then a laughing face peering between the branches.
“I see you! Whoever you are, come down!” His querulous voice held a command.
“Indeed sir. I don’t have to,” was the merry reply. “I am a bird with red and gold feathers and I shall remain in my tree.”
The boy smiled. It was the first time that he had been interested in the five months since his father had died.
“I can see the glimmer of your plumage through the leaves,” he called. Then changing his tone, he said pleadingly, “Lady Bird won’t you please come down?”
Nan dropped lightly to the ground on the Widdemere side of the hedge.
The lad looked at the beautiful dark-skinned maiden, and then, little dreaming that he was speaking the truth, he said, “Why, Lady Bird, your dress makes you look like a gypsy.”
“I am one!” the girl replied. “My name is Gypsy Nan. I am staying with the Barrington’s for a time.” Then her dark eyes twinkled merrily as she confided. “Miss Ursula Barrington is trying to civilize me, but she had to go away, and oh I am so glad! It isn’t a bit nice to be civilized, is it?”