“Oh, dear,” exclaimed Maggie. “Richard is incorrigible. He does make me so uneasy sometimes.”
“There is nothing to do but wait patiently until the spirit moves him to come back,” put in Amy calmly. “He is so strong and well that perhaps his wounds don’t have to be dressed as often as other people’s. There seems to be a special Providence that looks after him anyhow. It would be foolish to worry.”
Nevertheless, Billie did worry considerably in her heart, and even Phoebe, who presently joined them and was introduced to the girls, looked startled and uneasy when she heard that Richard Hook, her deliverer, had gone away without having his wound dressed.
The caravanners were greatly interested in seeing Phoebe, whose history they had heard.
“She is very beautiful,” Amy observed, “but she doesn’t look human, somehow. She has the expression of a person who sees visions, air pictures invisible to other people.”
“She is very religious,” Billie replied. “Not like the religious people we know, but—well like people in the time of Christ might have been. You see she got it all herself without any outside teaching. She just learned it out of the New Testament mostly, and she practices it all the time. It’s part of her life. Sometimes, I think it would be a pity to interfere with it.”
“How can you interfere with it, Billie?” asked Nancy.
“By taking her back to wicked West Haven with all its temptations,” laughed Billie.
“But shall you?” they asked in a chorus.
“We can’t leave her in this wild place.”