"Run," he urged, tugging at her hand when she continued to stand motionless in the middle of the walk. "Petri geta me."
"No, no, Petri shan't have you, I say!" Peace declared savagely. "But if I take you home to Saint Elspeth, like as not the Human Society will be right there to nab you; and if they ain't now, Miss Curtis will send 'em along as soon as she finds we've run away. Where can I take you?"
Anxiously she looked about her for a hiding place, and as if in answer to her question, her glance rested upon the stone house, surrounded by its tall hedges. "Sure enough! Why didn't I think of that before? My Lilac Lady will take care of you, I know, until Saint John can find some nice place for you to live always. Come on this way."
She whisked around the corner, threw open the gate, and ushered the trembling waif into the splendid garden, with the announcement, "Here is the place I mean, and there is the Lilac Lady under the trees."
The boy surveyed the masses of brilliant flowers, the sparkling fountain, the shifting shadows of the great oaks above him where birds were singing. Then he turned and scanned the white, sweet face among the pillows, and clasping his thin hands in rapture, he breathed, "Italy! Oh, eet iss Paradise!" And as if unable to restrain his joy any longer, he burst into a wild, plaintive song, with a voice silvery toned and clear as a bell. Peace paused in the midst of a turbulent explanation to listen; Aunt Pen came to the door with her sewing in her hand; Hicks stole around the corner of the house, thinking perhaps the young mistress had broken her long silence; and the lame girl herself lay with parted lips, charmed by the glorious burst of melody.
The song won her heart, even before she heard the pitiful story of the wretched little musician, and when Peace had finished recounting the morning's events, the mistress of the stone house turned toward her aunt with blazing, wrathful eyes, exclaiming impetuously, "Isn't that shocking? Oh, how dreadful! We must help him, Aunt Pen. Poor little Giuseppe! See the Humane Society about him at once—Now don't look so horrified, Peace. They don't kill little boys and girls. They take good care of just such waifs as this, and provide nice homes for them. Even if Giuseppe were related to Petri, the Humane Society would take the child away from him on account of his brutality. He is worse than a beast to treat the boy so, and Giuseppe shall never go back to him as long as I can do anything. He shall go to school like other children and get an education. Then we'll make a splendid musician of him; and who knows, Peace, but some day he will be a second Campanini?"
Peace had not the faintest idea of what a Campanini was, but she did understand that Giuseppe Nicoli had found a home and friends, and she was content.