More about Pixie | Page 2

exciting to see a glimpse of the outer
world, wouldn't it?"
"Rather! I can't believe that everything is going on just the same. Are
all the neighbours alive still? Is the old man at the corner alive? Has the
little girl at Number Five grown-up and put on long frocks? I feel as if I
had been lying here for years and years. I believe I have grown grey
myself. Give me a hand-glass, Whitey, and let me see how I look."
Whitey walked obediently across the room, and brought back the
silver- backed glass from the dressing-table. She was accustomed to her
nickname by this time, and was indeed rather proud of it than otherwise.
She had been known successively as "Spirit of the Day," and "The
White Nurse," during the hours of delirium, and the abbreviation had a
natural girlish ring about it, which was a herald of returning health.
"There, look at yourself, Miss Conceit!" she cried laughingly, and
Sylvia held the glass erect in both hands and stared curiously at her

own reflection. She saw a thin, clear-cut little face, with arched
eyebrows, large brown eyes, an aquiline nose, and full, pouting lips.
The cheeks showed delicate hollows beneath the cheek bones, and the
eyes looked tired and heavy, otherwise there was no startling change to
record.
"I don't look as much older as I expected, but I've got a different
expression, Whitey--a sort of starved-wolf, haggard, tired-out look, just
exactly like I feel. Aren't I beautifully thin? It's always been my
ambition to be slim and willowy, like the people in fashion plates. I
shall be quite a vision of elegance, shan't I, Whitey?"
"Um! Well," said Whitey vaguely, "you must expect to look very slight
after lying in bed for so long, but it doesn't matter about that. You won't
trouble about appearances, so long as you feel well and strong again."
"Yes, I shall!" said the invalid stubbornly. She turned her head on one
side and stared intently at the long plaits of hair which trailed over the
pillow--her "Kenwigs" as she had dubbed them, after Charles Dickens's
immortal "Miss Kenwigses," who are pictorially represented in short
frocks, pantaloons, and tight plaits of hair, secured at the ends by bows
of ribbon.
"My Kenwigs look very thin," she said anxiously. "I used to have three
thick coils. People's hair doesn't come out after typhoid fever, does it,
Whitey? I shall be furious if mine does."
"Oh, hair generally comes out a little in autumn," replied Whitey easily.
"Now you have looked at yourself quite long enough. I will put back
the glass and prepare some food while your aunt comes to see you, but
I shall tell her not to talk too much, for the doctor won't let you be
moved if you are looking tired and exhausted."
Sylvia sighed to herself, for interviews with Aunt Margaret were a
decided trial in these days of convalescence, when every nerve seemed
on edge and ready to be jarred. She was nearly twenty-two, and for the
first year after leaving school the dear old dad had been in England, and
she had had the most delightful time travelling about with him. He

always declared that he was a poor man, that tea was doing so
disgracefully badly, that he expected to retire into the workhouse in the
course of the next year, but, all the same, he never appeared to be short
of money, and the travelling was done in the most comfortable and
luxurious of fashions. Sylvia was his only child, and in his eyes was the
most beautiful and accomplished creature in the world, so that it was a
trying experience to be domiciled with an elderly maiden aunt, whose
ideas were as early Victorian as her furniture, who had forgotten what it
felt like to be young, and was continually aggrieved because her niece
had not learned to be old.
During the long year of idleness Sylvia had cherished the idea that her
father would take her back to Ceylon, when she would reign as Queen
of the Bungalow, charm the hearts of the coolies by her beauty and
dignity, pay frequent visits to Kandy, and become one of the favourites
of society; but when it came to the point it appeared that he had no
intention of the sort. In two or three years he hoped to be able to settle
in England, and meantime his ambition for his daughter demanded that
she should remain at home and devote her time to music, for which she
showed an unusual talent. If he had other reasons he kept them to
himself, but as a matter of fact he dreaded a possible marriage abroad,
which would condemn the girl to a life of separation from