The Love Affairs of Pixie | Page 8

residents, his list of
acquaintances was but small.
Esmeralda, or to speak more correctly, Joan, the second daughter of the
O'Shaughnessy family, as the wife of the millionaire, Geoffrey Hilliard,
possessed a beautiful country seat not sixty miles from town, while
Jack, the eldest brother, had returned to the home of his fathers, Knock
Castle, in Ireland, on the money which his wife had inherited from her
father, after he had become engaged to her in her character of a
penniless damsel. Jack was thankful all his life to remember that fact,
though his easy-going Irish nature found nothing to worry about in the
fact that the money was legally his wife's, and not his own.
Both Esmeralda as a society queen, and Sylvia as chatelaine of Knock,
had opportunities of showing life to a young girl, with which Bridgie in
her modest little home in a provincial town could not compete.
Nevertheless, the heart of the tender elder sister was loath to part from
her charge at the very moment when watchfulness and guidance were
most important. She fought against the idea; assured herself that there
was time, plenty of time. What, after all, was twenty-one? In two, three
years one might talk about society; in the meantime let the child be!
And Captain Victor, in his turn, looked into the future, and saw his
Bridgie left sisterless in this strange town, bereft all day long of the

society of the sweetest and most understanding of companions, and he,
too, sighed, and asked himself what was the hurry. Surely another year,
a couple of years! And then, being one in reality as well as in name, the
eyes of husband and wife met and lingered, and, as if at the sweep of an
angel's wing, the selfish thoughts fell away, and they faced their duty
and accepted it once for all.
Bridgie leaned her head on her husband's shoulder and sighed
thankfully.
"I have you, Dick, and the children! 'Twould be wicked to complain."
And Dick murmured gruffly--
"I want no one but you," and held her tightly in his arms, while Bridgie
sniffed, and whimpered, like one of her own small children.
"But if P-ixie--if Pixie is unhappy--if any wretched man breaks Pixie's
heart--"
"He couldn't!" Dick Victor said firmly. "No man could. That's beyond
them. Heart's like Pixie's don't break, Honey! I don't say they, may not
ache at times, but breaking is a different matter. Your bantling is
grown-up: you can keep her no longer beneath your wing. She must go
out into the world, and work and suffer like the rest, but she'll win
through. Pixie the woman will be a finer creature than Pixie the child!"
But Bridgie hid her face, and the tears rushed into her eyes, for hers
was the mother's heart which longed ever to succour and protect, and
Pixie was the child whom a dying father had committed to her care. It
was hard to let Pixie go.
CHAPTER FOUR.
THE INVITATION.
The immediate consequence of the Pixie pronouncement was a
correspondence between her two elder sisters, wherein Bridgie ate

humble-pie, and Esmeralda rode the high horse after the manner born.
"You were right about Pixie, darling. It is dull for her here in this
strange town, where we have so few friends; and now that she is nearly
twenty-one it does not seem right to shut her up. She ought to go about
and see the world, and meet boys and girls of her own age. And so,
dear, would it be convenient to you to have her for a few months until
you go up to town? Your life in the country will seem a whirl of gaiety
after our monotonous jog-trot, and she has been so useful and diligent,
helping me these last years with never a thought for her own enjoyment,
that she deserves all the fun she can get. I am sad at parting from her,
but if it's for her good I'll make the effort. She has two nice new frocks,
and I could get her another for parties." Thus Bridgie. Esmeralda's
reply came by return--the big, slanting writing, plentifully underlined--
"At last, my dear, you have come to your senses. For a sweet-tempered
person, you certainly have, as I've told you before, a surprising amount
of obstinacy. In future do try to believe that in matters of worldly
wisdom I know best, and be ruled by me!
"Pixie can come at once--the sooner the better, but for pity's sake, my
dear, spare me the frocks. Felice can run her up a few things to last
until I have time to take her to town. If I am to take her about, she must
be dressed to please me, and do me credit.
"We have people