Pixie OShaughnessy | Page 8

your ancestors were
Kings of Ireland when theirs were begging bread on the streets! Talk to
them straight, and let them know who they are dealing with!"
"I will so!" said Pixie. She chuckled gleefully at the anticipation; but,
alas! her joy was short-lived, for at that moment the shabby dogcart

passed the window, and the Major's voice was heard calling impatiently
from the hall.
"Ten minutes late already. We shall need all our time. Tumble in, now,
tumble in! You have had the whole morning for saying good-bye.
Surely you have finished by now!"
The children thought they had hardly begun; but perhaps it was just as
well to be spared the last trying moments. Bridgie and Esmeralda
wrapped their arms round the little sister and almost carried her to the
door; Pat and Miles followed with their hands in their pockets, putting
on a great affectation of jollity in their anxiety to disguise a natural
regret; the two women-servants wailed loudly from the staircase. Pixie
scrambled to her seat and looked down at them, her poor little chin
quivering with emotion.
"Bridgie, write! Esmeralda, write!" she cried brokenly. "Oh, write often!
Write every day. Pat, Pat, be kind to my ferret. Don't starve it. Don't let
it die. Take care of it for me till I come back."
"I'll be a mother to it," said Pat solemnly.
And so Pixie O'Shaughnessy went off to school.
CHAPTER THREE.
THE NEW SCHOLAR.
Major O'Shaughnessy and his little daughter reached London on the
following afternoon, after a comfortable and unadventurous journey.
Pixie had howled dismally all the way to the station, but had dried her
eyes at the sight of the train, and even brightened into hilarious spirits
on boarding the steamer. She ate an enormous dinner of the richest and
most indigestible dishes on the menu, slept peacefully through a stormy
passage, and was up on deck conversing affably with the men who
were washing down, long before her father had nerved himself to think
of dressing. The journey to London was a more or less disappointing
experience, for, if she had not known to the contrary, she was not at all

sure that she would have recognised that she was in a strange land.
What she had expected, it was impossible to say; but that England
should bear so close a resemblance to her beloved land seemed another
"insult to Ireland," as Pat would have had it, and that it should in some
respects look better, more prosperous and orderly, this was indeed a
bitter pill to swallow.
As the train neared London, and other passengers came in and out of
the carriage, Major O'Shaughnessy became conscious for the first time
what a dusty, dishevelled little mortal he was about to introduce to an
English school. He was not noticing where his children were concerned,
and moreover, his eye had grown accustomed to the home surroundings,
but the contrast between these trim strangers and his own daughter was
too striking to be overlooked. Pixie had wriggled about until her frock
was a mass of creases, her hat was grey with dust, and she had
apparently forgotten to brush her hair before leaving her cabin. The
Major was too easy-going to feel any distress at this reflection. He
merely remarked to himself whimsically that, "the piccaninny would
astonish them!" meaning the companions to whom she was about to be
introduced, and decided then and there to take her straight to her
destination. This had been the only point upon which he and his young
daughter had been at variance; for from the start Pixie had laid down,
as her idea of what was right and proper, that her father should take her
for the night to a grand hotel, introduce her next morning to the Tower,
the Zoological Gardens, and Madame Tussaud's, and deposit her at
Surbiton in the afternoon. The Major's ideas on the subject were,
however, that an exacting little daughter was a drawback to a man's
enjoyment of a visit to London, and that there were other forms of
amusement which he would prefer to a visit to the before-mentioned
historic resorts. With accustomed fluency, he found a dozen reasons for
carrying out his own wishes, and propitiated Pixie by promising that
Jack should take her sight-seeing before many weeks were over.
"I'll tell Miss Phipps that I wish you to go out with your brother on
Saturday afternoons, and you'll have a fine time together seeing all that
is to be seen. Far greater fun than if we tried to hurry about with not a
minute to spare."

"I like to do things now," sighed Pixie pensively; but as usual she
resigned herself to the inevitable, and a box of chocolates, bought at
Waterloo, sufficed to bring back the