“Wait a moment, miss,” cried Delia; “there's somethin' else.”
I waited. This something else seemed difficult to tell.
“You go ahead,” breathed Delia at last, nudging Annie, who gulped and set off with unusual rapidity.
“Robbie was sick last night, towards morn-in'. He had the night terrors, Mary said” (Mary was Robbie's nurse of whom at that time I had seen little), “an' she could n't get him quiet. He kep' a-talkin' about a lady with red hair”—they looked at me out of the corners of their eyes, and I felt my face grow hot—“a lady that stood over him—well! there's no tellin' the fancies of a nervous child like him! Anyways, Mary was after a hot-water bottle, an' we, bein' wakeful an' jumpy-like, was after helpin' her. Delia an' me, we went for a cup of hot milk, an' me an' Mary come upstairs from the kitchen again together an' went towards the nursery. Now, miss,”—again they cuddled up to one another, and Annie's throat gave a queer sort of click,—“jes' as we come to the turn of the passage, we seen somethin' come out o' the nursery, quick an' quiet, an' jump away down the hall an' out o' sight. Delia an' me, bein' scairt already, run away to our own room, but Mary she made fer the nursery as quick as she could, an' there she found Robbie all but in fits, so scairt he could n't scream, doublin' an' twistin', an' rollin' his eyes. But when she got him calmed down at last, why, it was the same story—a lady with red hair that come an' stood over him, an' stuck her face down closter an' closter—jes' a reg'lar nightmare—but we all three seen the thing come boundin' out o' his room.”
“Why isn't Mary here to give notice?” I asked after a few moments. During that time I conquered, first, a certain feeling of fear, caused less by the story than by the look in Delia's light eyes, and, second, a very strong sensation of anger. I could not help feeling that they enjoyed that endless repetition of the “lady with red hair.” Did the silly creatures suspect me of playing ghoulish tricks to terrify a child?
“Well, Mary, she looks rather peaky this mornin',” said Annie, “but she's young an' venturesome, an' she says mebbe we jes' fancied the thing cornin' out o' the nursery, an', anyways, she's the kind that would n't leave her charge. She's that fond of Robbie.”
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