"No one? Oh, joy! Perhaps I may have her for my own."
Enrichetta, the nurse, showed the welts on the child's body—two red marks from Guiseppe's stick.
"Povera figlietta [Poor little girl]," she said. "It is now quite certain she will have a run of fever."
The excitement and strain of the past few weeks had proved too much for Pappina. In her delirium it was always of Guiseppe she spoke. She would beg, plead and defy him, start to sing, then cry: "The tambourine will make no music. It is broken. I cannot sing or dance now, Guiseppe, for my head hurts and the sun is so hot."
It was easy to gather from her delirious talk some idea of the hard life she had led.
No artist's dream could have appeared more beautiful than she, as she lay in her bed. Mrs. Thurston came every day, sometimes twice, to see her. In Pappina she had found a real interest in life; and her motherly heart warmed toward this lovely, abused child.
True love for Pappina sprang up in her heart in the days of the child's convalescence. In the long talks the two had together there was never a word of complaint against Guiseppe. The physician and nurse in charge with Mrs. Thurston questioned her and she willingly told them all, but never with complaints.
"I think I was as bad as I could be, because, you see, Guiseppe paid money for me, and sometimes when I was tired I did not want to sing and dance. Oh, please don't make me go back to him!"
"I will find Guiseppe," declared Mrs. Thurston. "I will pay him back with interest all he paid for you, and you may be my little girl if you will."
"Your little girl! I the little girl of such a lady!" The bright look on the child's face changed as she continued: