“Toothache, perhaps,” thought a woman who entered the car with a baby and two little girls. One of the girls limped along, scowling as if every step hurt her.
“How do you do, Mrs. Chase?” said Aunt Charlotte, making room for the mother and baby by taking Flaxie in her lap; then turning over the seat just in front of them for the two little girls. “I think it will be a good thing for my niece, Flaxie Frizzle, to see your children, Mrs. Chase.”
Flaxie wondered why it should be a good thing; still she was glad the little girls had come, for she liked to look at them.
Hattie was a bright child of six, just her own age; but the lame girl of ten, what a white face she had! What very light, straw-colored hair! Her manners were odd, Flaxie thought, for as soon as she saw the doll Peppermint Drop, she snatched at her and would have pulled off her blue satin sash if Flaxie had not drawn it away.
“Lucy, Lucy,” said Mrs. Chase, “don’t touch the little girl’s doll!”
Then Lucy leaned forward again, and fingered the buttons on Aunt Charlotte’s dress, and stroked her fur cloak, with a smile. That was a queer thing for such a large girl to do, but Aunt Charlotte did not seem to mind it, and only said, “I fancy Lucy wants a lozenge,” and popped one into her mouth as if she had been a baby. Flaxie stared, and the mother said, with a sad smile:
“Poor Lucy knows but very little. Aren’t you sorry for her?”
“Oh dear, why doesn’t she?” said Flaxie, forgetting her own trouble in gazing at the strange little girl, who was now stroking Aunt Charlotte’s cloak again, as if she did not hear a word that was said. “Why doesn’t she know but little?”
“Because she was very sick a great many years ago, and it hurt her mind.”
“Can she talk?”