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She was so hot, and breathless, and agitated that she would have rushed straightway from the department, but Pixie stood her ground and remained serenely unperturbed. "'Twas true!" she cried. "'Twas only the truth she heard. 'Twas hidjus, and no words of yours would make it pretty. And as for cheap, she ought to take that for a compliment, seeing the pains she's taking to get another like it!
Pixie gloated over it with sparkling eyes, kissed it, hugged it, poked at it with her fingers to discover exactly how many sheets it might contain, and finally devoured it and the bread- and-butter together in one long beam of delight. "Littlest and dearest, do you want to see us all, and know what we are doing?
I am sure you must be hungry after all your exertions. Let me wait upon you now, in return for all the pleasure you have given me by your charming singing." But no, Pixie refused to sit down or to eat any of the good things pressed upon her.
Pixie came to me next morning and said, `Lottie, they think I broke the bottle because I was the only girl in Mademoiselle's room last night; but I know that you were there too, and that you had been taking some scent! and I begged and prayed her not to tell anyone else.
On the lowest step crouched Pixie, all eyes and gaping mouth; on the third Mademoiselle clasped her hands, and wagged her head from side to side, as if calling someone to witness that she at least was innocent of offence; from between the banisters peered a red, questioning face, audacious, yet vaguely alarmed.
I came on purpose to tell you. Can you guess who `She' is?" "How could I guess? I don't know your friends. There's no one at all that it could be, unless, perhaps " Pixie stopped short suddenly, as certain memories darted into her mind.
During the next fortnight Pixie spent no less than three days with her sisters, and had the felicity of helping to choose the little house, in which they were to begin the new life.
Pixie O'Shaughnessy was at once the joy and terror of the school. It had been a quiet, well-conducted seminary before her time, or it seemed so, at least, looking back after the arrival of the wild Irish tornado, before whose pranks the mild mischief of the Englishers was as water unto wine.
If the two Houses of Parliament were walking up to Knock Castle and telling them that Pixie had told a lie and stuck to it for a month on end, they would only be calling shame upon them, to have nothing better to do than take away a lady's character, and the Major would say, `Twelve years have I known her, and never the day that she wasn't up to her neck in mischief, but no child of mine ever looked in my face and gave me the lie, and Pixie's not the one to begin. So never a word did I say, but just that the examinations were coming on, and we were not allowed to go out."
"Yes, I've seen it? and perhaps there may be courtiers waiting for you, Pixie; and kisses too, and a dear little crown to put on that shaggy head! Great excitements have happened since you went to bed, and we know now that it was not you who broke Mademoiselle's scent-bottle. We are almost certain that it was Lottie herself, and Miss Phipps has sent for you to help us!"
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