Pixie sighed at that, and shook her head in melancholy fashion.

"I've no mother. She died when I was young, and the Major's horse threw him two years ago, and I've been an orphan ever since. There's only Bridgie now!"

"Poor child!" The lady looked at the quaint figure with a kindly glance, thinking of the two little girls upstairs, and picturing them starting out to fight the world when they should still have been safe within the shelter of the schoolroom. "I'm sorry to hear that.

Bridgie, I suppose, is your sister? Does she know what you are doing?

Would she be willing for you to apply for a situation in this manner?"

"Maybe not at first, but I'd beguile her. I'm the youngest, and I always get my own way. I told Sylvia Trevor, who was staying with us, and she was very kind, giving me good advice not to do it, but it is to be a surprise for Bridgie to help her to pay the bills. If ye want money, what else can you do than try to earn it?"

"But not at your age, dear! You are too young yet awhile!" Mrs Wallace crossed the room and seating herself in a chair by Pixie's side, laid a hand on her shoulder with quite affectionate pressure. "I appreciate your kindly intention, but I am afraid it will be a good many years before you are ready to take a governess's place. You saw yourself what a difference there was between yourself and the other ladies who came to see me to-day!"

"I'm more amusing! Ye wouldn't believe how amusing I can be when I try!

At school there was a prize which was given to the girl who was nicest to the other girls, and they all voted for me, and I've got it now and could bring it to show you if you liked. I'm not exactly clever, and there was no chance for anyone else at the bottom of the cla.s.s, but you didn't say a word about teaching, except French, and I could talk that all day long!"

"Yes! I should be quite satisfied if my girlies spoke as well as you do. Your accent is charming, and you have just the air, but--but you are so young--so ridiculously young!"

"So are the children. They'd like me best!" maintained Pixie st.u.r.dily, and at that Mr Wallace burst into a laugh. His eyes had been twinkling for some time past, and he had been stroking his moustache as if to conceal his amus.e.m.e.nt, but now he made no more disguise, but laughed and laughed again, as if he were thoroughly enjoying himself.

"Upon my word, Edith, I believe she is right! If you consider the children's feelings, there is no doubt how they would decide. If you want them kept happy and bright, now's your chance! After our earlier experiences this is really quite refreshing, and I am beginning to think your advertis.e.m.e.nt has been of some use after all. How would it be if you interviewed Miss Bridgie--I didn't catch the second name--and if she is agreeable, you might perhaps make some temporary arrangement!"

"O'Shaughnessy. It's Irish! I'm sure Bridgie would say yes, for it would be occupation for me in the mornings, and so near that I could come by myself. We live in Rutland Road, but the house is so small ye would hardly notice it if you pa.s.sed by. Jack says if he could get London rents in Ireland, he'd never do another honest day's work while he lived. You could put the whole place down in the hall at Knock Castle, and never know it was there, and Bridgie says she knows every blade of gra.s.s in the garden. We had the loveliest grounds at Knock, all the flowers coming up anyway, and volunteers drilling in the park, and the gla.s.s-houses full of ferrets and white mice, and tomatoes, and everything you can think of. If I could make some money we should be able to go back sooner than we thought, and Bridgie would be so pleased.

When shall I say you are coming to see her?"

"I have not promised to come at all. You must not leap at conclusions.

It is a most ridiculous scheme, but really--"

Mrs Wallace laughed in her turn, and going up to where her husband stood, exchanged a few whispered confidences, some scattered words of which reached the listener's ear. "Typically Irish! Preposterous! No harm trying. What about Viva? So difficult to manage."

The discussion was still progressing when from above sounded a sudden piercing cry, mounting ever higher and higher, the note sustained in evident but determined effort. Footsteps raced across the floor, followed by a bang as of some heavy wooden structure, a murmured protest, and two distinct sets of shrieks, each warring against the other.

Mr Wallace pressed his hands to his head, Mrs Wallace sighed, "Oh dear, dear, dear!" in tones of hopeless distress, but Pixie cried eagerly--

"Will I run upstairs and try what I can do? Will I make them stop, and laugh instead?"

"You'd deserve the Victoria Cross!" the father declared, while the mother hurried to the door, and led the way with rapid footsteps.

"They have been brought up by an Indian ayah, and this English nurse doesn't understand them a bit. They _have_ trying tempers, there is no use denying it, but they are dear little creatures _if_ rightly managed.

Oh dear, dear, dear! these dreadful shrieks! They go through my head."

"Let me go in alone. They will listen better if they don't see you,"

said Pixie, and walked undauntedly on to the field of battle. In this instance it was represented by a remarkably handsome and well-filled nursery, and the belligerents took the form of two little girls of four and five, who were seated on the floor, dry-eyed, but crimson-faced from the effort to sustain their shrieks. A box of bricks lay scattered by the window, and an anaemic nurse leant against the wall in an att.i.tude of despair.

Pixie walked forward, seated herself on the floor immediately in front of the children, and gazed at them with benign curiosity. There was no anger in her face, no warning of punishment to come, her expression was in such striking contrast with that which they were accustomed to behold on such occasions, that from pure amazement they stopped crying to stare at her in their turn. The moment was hers, and she lost no time in using it.

"The fat one," she said, pointing gravely to the younger of the sisters, "the fat one shouts higher, but the thin one,"--the eloquent finger was turned towards the maid with the golden locks,--"the thin one keeps on longer. You have both won! The prize is that I tell you a story about the Sp.o.o.pjacks, when they went to fight the Bobityshooties in the Christmas holidays!"

Silence. Viva laid her head on one side and considered the project.

Inda pouted her lower lip, and burst into the story of her woes.

"An' I was jest finishin' ze house, and ze chimbleys was getting ready, and she comed against me, an' I pinched her leg, and she throwed it down, an' it was all spoiled, an' the dolls was going to live in it, an'--"

"The Sp.o.o.pjacks live in the lamp-posts. There are seven of them, and they have tin whiskers, and they went to war with the Bobityshooties because they ate all the m.u.f.fins, and there were none left for tea. So Nicholas Sp.o.o.pjack bought six rolling-pins and a watering-cart, and melted down his whiskers for guns, and they put on red gaiters and clean pinafores, and marched across the park. The Bobityshooties were resting under the trees, and all the little birds were eating up the m.u.f.fin crumbs. The Bobityshooties really live in the pantry cupboard, so that was how they found the m.u.f.fins, but they were spending the day in the country, and Selina Bobityshooty said to her mother--"

"Is that in a book?" queried the elder Miss Wallace suddenly. She was an exceedingly precocious young lady, and quick to note the unusual style of the narrative. Sometimes the stories in books were about good little girls with whom she had no sympathy, and even if the heroine were naughty to begin with, she invariably improved at the end, and never, never knocked down her sister's bricks. The Sp.o.o.pjacks and Bobityshooties were new acquaintances and promised well, but she wished to be rea.s.sured as regards the moral. "Is that written in a book?"

"No, it's out of my head. There are billions and billions of little girls in the world, and not one of them has ever heard what Selina said to her mother. If you will kiss your sister and say you're sorry, I'll tell you as a secret. It's awful exciting!"

"All right, I'm sorry, only you pinched me too--go on about Selina!"

cried Viva in a breath. She kissed her sister on the cheek, and fat little Inda smiled complacently, and repeated, "Go on 'bout S'lina!"

Outside in the pa.s.sage father and mother looked at each other with sparkling eyes.

"My dear, she is worth a fortune to us!" cried Mr Wallace rapturously.

"She understands children, and they understand her; the girlies will be as good as gold under her care. I'll tell Spencer to bring round the carriage and send her home in state, and to-morrow afternoon without fail you must strike a bargain with Mistress Bridgie!"

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

VIVA'S STORY.

Pixie drove home in state, so puffed up with her own importance that it was a distinct blow to find the curtains comfortably drawn, and hear the echo of laughter from the drawing-room. In all the books which she had ever read, candles were left burning in the windows to guide the footsteps of wanderers from the fold, to say nothing of bellmen parading the streets, and anxious relatives rushing from one police station to another. Here, however, all was peace and contentment, and, incredible as it appeared, no one seemed to have been the least agitated about her prolonged absence.

Bridgie was perched on a stool in the centre of the fire rug, relating the history of the day's shopping to the three brothers, and she nodded cheerily at the little sister as she entered, and saluted her with unconcerned composure.

"Well, dear, here you are! Tired after your long day?"

Pixie sank down on the corner of the sofa, and yawned with a nonchalant air. If there was one thing which she loved above everything else in the world, it was to make an impression and be the centre of attraction, and it was not likely that she was going to let slip such an opportunity as the present.

"'Deed I'm not tired," she said genially. "Carriage exercise was always more to my fancy than walking about the streets. If we'd been meant to walk, wouldn't we have had four legs the same as the horses, and if we haven't, doesn't it show that they were meant to do it for us? So when he said the butler should get me the carriage, it wasn't likely I was going to refuse, and up I drove to the very door!"

Jack stopped short in the middle of crossing the room, Pat peered round the corner of his chair and twinkled with mischievous enjoyment, Bridgie's eyes opened as wide as saucers.

"Which door? What carriage? What romance are ye telling me? Haven't you been with Sylvia since I left you?"

"'Deed I have not. What made you fancy I had?"

"There was nowhere else to go, and you had not come home. I made certain you were with Sylvia!"

"It's a bad thing to be certain about what you don't know. If any mischief had happened to me, it would be annoying to you to remember how you were laughing with your back to the fire, while I was run over in the street, and having my legs sawed off at the hospital."

Jack frowned at that, and put a quick question.

"Have you been walking about by yourself? I won't have it at this hour of the night. You can find your own way about the neighbourhood in the daytime, but I won't have you going into town by yourself, or even across the road in the dark. London is not Knock, remember, and it would be the easiest thing in the world to get lost. Don't let her roam about without you, Bridgie!"

"'Twas only a step, and barely four o'clock!" Bridgie's forehead was fretted with anxious lines, but Pixie nodded back cheery rea.s.surement.

"Don't you repine about me, for I got on famously, and Mrs Wallace is coming herself to see you in the afternoon. I've engaged myself as a French lady to amuse the children, and you shall have the money to pay the bills. It was an advertis.e.m.e.nt in the paper, and you had to call between four and six, so I didn't want you to know before everything was settled. I don't know how much it will be, but Mr Wallace said I was worth a fortune, because I made them stop howling. There are only two, but outside the door you would think they were a dozen, and I made them laugh, and they sent me home in a carriage."