THE FAIRY GODFATHER
Lucia turned and looked up quickly. She was startled and not a little embarrassed at having her confidence overheard.
Through the door that led from the ward the American was pushing a bed on wheels. Lucia had seen that same bed many times before. It had belonged to the old Mother Superior of the convent, and many a bright morning she had seen it out in the garden as she sat at her desk in the schoolroom above.
She looked at the white pillow half expecting to see the old wrinkled face of Mother Cecelia, but instead Captain Riccardi looked up at her and smiled.
"See, I've found you at last," he said, as Lathrop pushed the bed beside Lucia's chair. "I was beginning to think that you were just a dream child, and that I had imagined about the milk."
Lucia laughed gayly.
"No, Captain, that was not a dream, or I hope it wasn't, for if the milk was not real then I dreamed about the pennies, and the sick soldiers never got them."
"Sick soldiers! Did you give away the money?"
"Oh yes, sir, how could I keep it? I did not know you were a Captain, I thought—"
"You thought I was just a poor soldier, eh?"