Pixie OShaughnessy | Page 2

speak, and
I'll astonish you about it!" And when she could sit up she virtually
governed the nursery. The shrewdness of the glance which she cast
upon her sisters quite disturbed the enjoyment of those young ladies in
the pursuance of such innocent tricks as making lakes of ink in the laps
of their clean pinafores, or scratching their initials on newly painted
doors, and she waved her rattle at them with such an imperious air that
they meekly bowed their heads, and allowed her to tug at their curls
without reproach.
The whole family vied with each other in adoring the ugly duckling,
and in happy Irish fashion regarded her shortcomings as a joke rather
than a misfortune. "Seen that youngster of mine?" the Major would cry
genially to his friends. "She's worth a visit, I tell you! Ugliest child in
Galway, though I say it that shouldn't." And Pixie's company tricks
were all based on the subject of personal shortcomings.
"Show the lady where your nose ought to be, darling," her mother
would say fondly, and the baby fingers would point solemnly to the flat
space between the eyes.
"And where's the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky, sweetheart?" would be
the next question, when the whole of Pixie's fat fist would disappear
bodily inside the capacious mouth.
"The Major takes more notice of her than he did of any of the others,"
Mrs O'Shaughnessy would tell her visitor. "He is always buying her
presents!"
And then she would sigh, for, alas! the Major was one of those careless,

extravagant creatures, who are never restrained from buying a luxury
by the uninteresting fact that the bread bill is owing, and the butcher
growing pressing in his demands. When his wife pleaded for money
with which to defray household bills, he grew irritable and impatient,
as though he himself were the injured party. "The impudence of the
fellows!" he would cry. "They are nothing but ignorant upstarts, while
the O'Shaughnessys have been living on this ground for the last three
centuries. They ought to be proud to serve me! This is what comes of
educating people beyond their station. Any upstart of a tradesman
thinks himself good enough to trouble an O'Shaughnessy about a
trumpery twenty or thirty pounds. I'll show them their mistake! You
can tell them that I'll not be bullied, and indeed they might as well save
their trouble, for, between you and me, there's not a five-pound note in
my pocket between now and the beginning of the year." After
delivering himself of which statement he would take the train to the
nearest town, order a new coat, buy an armful of toys for Pixie, and
enjoy a good dinner at the best hotel, leaving his poor wife to face the
irate tradesmen as best she might.
Poor Mrs O'Shaughnessy! She hid an aching heart under a bright
exterior many times over, as the pressure for money grew ever tighter
and tighter, and she saw her children running wild over the countryside,
with little or no education to fit them for the battle of life. The Major
declared that he could not afford school fees, so a daily governess was
engaged to teach boys and girls alike--a staid, old- fashioned maiden
lady, who tried to teach the young O'Shaughnessys on the principles of
fifty years ago, to her own confusion and their patronising disdain. The
three boys were sharp as needles to discover the weak points in her
armour, and maliciously prepared questions by which she could be put
to confusion, while the girls tittered and idled, finding endless excuses
for neglecting their unwelcome tasks. Half a dozen times over had Miss
Minnitt threatened to resign her hopeless task, and half a dozen times
had she been persuaded by Mrs O'Shaughnessy to withdraw her
resignation. The poor mother knew full well that it would be a
difficulty to find anyone to take the place of the hard-worked, ill-paid
governess, and the governess loved her wild charges, as indeed did
everyone who knew them, and sorrowed over them in her heart,

because she saw what their blind young eyes never noticed-- the
coming shadow on the house, the gradual fading away of the weary,
overtaxed mother. Mrs O'Shaughnessy had fought for years against
chronic weariness and ill-health, but the time was coming when she
could fight no longer, and, almost before her family had recognised that
she was ill, the end drew near, and her husband and children were
summoned to bid the last farewell.
The eyes of the dying woman roamed from one to the other of her six
children--twenty-two-year-old Jack, handsome and manly, so like--oh,
so like that other Jack who had come wooing her nearly thirty years ago!
Bridgie, slim and delicate--so unfit, poor child, to take