"Aunt Rudini!" she called excitedly, "you are back at last. Oh, Maria will be so glad!"
Señora Rudini looked up, fear and hope in her eyes.
"Maria!" she exclaimed, "where is she?"
"At the convent. She is helping to nurse the soldiers," Lucia replied.
"Oh, and I thought she was dead or a prisoner. She lay down beside me one night, and the next morning she was gone; I have been terrified." The old woman was wringing her hands.
"But she is safe, go and see," Lucia protested, "I have just left her."
Maria's mother needed no urging, she ran as fast as her stiff joints would allow towards the hospital. But she had not gone very far when she returned.
"I am a selfish old woman," she said, "thinking first of myself, when of course you want news of Nana. Well, look yonder in that farm wagon."
Lucia did not wait to hear more. She darted off and met the wagon before it reached the turn in the road.
"Beppi! Nana!" she called.