No questions asked, every one could see the child was kin to Vita, but not her own child, perhaps her granddaughter.
“She will be all right now, I think, Vita,” said Miss Beckwith. “She just had a spell of hysteria, didn’t she?”
“Oh, she have a fit very bad,” whispered the woman. “I run for doctor, quick, but he is no place——” her voice droned off into a low sound of foreign words, lamentation and wailings.
“Why was she shut up there?” asked Nora.
“She beg for dark—she never go in light when fit comes,” Vita managed to make them understand. “I always hide her—she runs from Nick like anything. But he no hurt her, never. Just one time he scare her. She always cry so much he t’ink she might get better, and he scare her. Lucia run away and come to Vita, every time.”
“He didn’t really hurt her,” Miss Beckwith was both asking Vita and explaining to the girls. “Hysterical children must have a dread of something, and I suppose she seized on that.”
Lucia now sat up and looked about her. All the fear had left her, and her black eyes shone with relief.
“She’s all right now, aren’t you, Lucia?” Thistle ventured to ask. The other girls were still spellbound.
“Lovely,” replied the child, actually rubbing her brown hand on the soft couch cover almost as if she were saying, “Nice! Nice!”
“There come Cousin Jerry and Cousin Ted!” exclaimed Nora. “I’ll bring them right up.”