"Aren't you sorry for me?" the brown eyes asked Bridgie mutely. But, lo! Bridgie was radiant, her face one sparkle of animation, her hands uplifted to hail the advent of a happy thought.

"The Diversion," she cried rapturously—"the Diversion! I see it all, and it is perfectly charming! Sylvia shall be the diversion! She shall stay over the New Year with us; Miss Munns shall go to her friend and talk over old times; nurse shall visit her sister and have a rest after her hard work; I will look after Sylvia, and Sylvia shall flirt with the boys, and keep them happy. It's a perfectly charming arrangement all round!"

"My dear!" cried Aunt Margaret in horrified protest against the last item on the programme. But Sylvia gave a chuckle of cheerful complacency, and, so far from being overcome, looked so much revived by the prospect that there could be no doubt as to the expediency of the proposed visit, so far as health at least was concerned.

Miss Munns went through the form of protesting, but her objections were easily waved aside, for to tell the truth she was only too ready to be persuaded, and her objections had no deeper root than the belief that it was not polite to seize too eagerly on an invitation.

"I could not think of it, my dear! Such an upset for you. You don't know how much work an invalid makes in the house! She has to be carried up and down stairs, and waited on hand and foot!"

"I have three big strong boys, and you have only women in the house. Pat could put her in his pocket, and not know there was anything there!"

"My dear—how can you! It would take up your spare room, too, and make so much ringing at the bell with nurse coming in the morning and the doctor in the afternoon."

"But what a lesson it would be to me to see them attending to her! So useful for the next time the boys break their legs! I love Whitey, and feel better for it every time I see her sweet, kind face."

"If you had had to prepare meals at all hours of the night and day, you would be sick of the sight of a nurse, however sweet she might look! I don't see why you should be upset, my dear, for the sake of my friend."

"Dear Miss Munns, I am thinking even more of my own friend. It is selfishness which makes me want to have Sylvia with me. We would enjoy being together and talking over our troubles just as you do. Please let her come!"

"Troubles, my dear—troubles? Has your cook given notice?" cried Miss Munns, her mind flying at once to domestic matters, and dwelling thereon with accustomed enjoyment. She had so many stories to tell of cooks who had left their places immediately before Christmas, and of the tragic consequences which followed, that the original subject of discussion took a secondary position in her thoughts, and when Bridgie began placidly to discuss arrangements, she fell into the trap with innocent alacrity. Sylvia could hardly believe her ears. It seemed quite too good to be true. The week's holiday held out glorious possibilities of enjoyment, and she began at once to count the hours which must elapse before her departure.



CHAPTER SIX.

BRIDGIE'S PUDDING.

It was two days before Christmas, and Bridgie O'Shaughnessy enveloped herself in a white apron, and pensively regarded the contents of the larder. In a couple of hours Sylvia was expected to arrive, and meanwhile Mary the cook had been seized with an irresistible craving to visit an invalid mother, and had taken herself off for the afternoon, leaving the arrangements for dinner in the care of the young mistress, and a still younger parlourmaid.

Mary's excuse for requesting leave of absence at so inconvenient a time was somewhat contradictory and involved. Her mother was failing fast, and as it was a custom in the family to die in December, it was a daughter's duty to visit her as often as possible; the shops were all dressed-up for Christmas, and it was hard that a body should not get a bit of pleasure sometimes, and the steak was stewed, and could be "hotted up" at a moment's notice. The invalid mother sat up for a couple of hours in the afternoon only, so Mary must get to the house by three o'clock at the latest, and would it matter if she were after eleven in returning, as Christmas came but once a year?

Sweet Bridgie assented warmly to each proposition as it was put before her, urged a speedy departure, and was rather inclined to think it would be wise to stay at home for the night. She could never find it in her heart to deny a pleasure which it was in her power to grant, and was gaily confident of managing "somehow" to prepare a palatable meal for her guest, indeed, in the ardour of hospitality was rather pleased than otherwise to have a hand in the preparations.

On the principle of "first catch your hare, then cook it," she looked critically over the contents of the cupboards to find some ingredients which commended themselves to her limited knowledge of the culinary art. Gelatine had endless possibilities, but time was against her, and she had the dimmest notions as to the quantity required; pastry was always attainable, but on the one occasion when she had experimented in this direction, Jack had taken the nutcrackers to divide his tartlet amidst the cheers of an admiring audience, so that there was plainly no fame to be won in this direction.

Milk puddings were too painfully ordinary, but a bag of macaroni seemed to offer at once an easy and a tasty alternative. Bridgie felt herself quite capable of boiling the sticks into tenderness, and scraping down cheese to add to the milky concoction, and a further search discovered a dark yellow lump stowed away in the corner of a cupboard evidently destined for such an end. It was wonderfully hard; Bridgie's fingers ached with the strain of cutting it, and she shook her pretty head solemnly over the wastefulness of servants in not using up materials before their freshness was lost. She had intended to use the whole of the piece, but it took so long to prepare that she stopped half-way, and to judge by the mellow brownness of the pudding when she peeped at it in the oven, quality had more than made up for quantity.

Sylvia sniffed delicately as she limped over the threshold, for the pudding had a strangely powerful smell, not exactly savoury perhaps, but distinctly fresh and wholesome. Bridgie bridled in proud consciousness of success the while she tucked up her guest on the drawing-room sofa.

"I've been making a pudding for you, dear. Mind you enjoy it! Mary is out, so you are to excuse everything that goes wrong. There's a pretty pink cushion to match your dress. I never saw that dress before! You are wonderfully smart, Miss Sylvia Trevor!"

"It's for the boys," said Sylvia, laughing. "I want to make a good impression, for I am dreadfully afraid they mayn't like me. I know nothing about young men. They never penetrate into Number Six, and Aunt Margaret thinks it is proper to ignore their existence between the ages of six and sixty. I thought if I put on the bright dress and my pet chiffon fichu, they might not notice how thin my hair is at the top!"

"I'll tell them not to notice," said Bridgie gravely. She crossed the room and poked the fire with the best brass poker, a real, live coal fire and no wretched asbestos imitation, and knelt on the rug holding out her hands to the blaze and scorching her cheeks with undisturbed complacency.

The room was mathematically the same in size and shape as the one across the road, but oh, how different in appearance! The one was a museum for the preservation of household gods, the other a haven for rest and amusement, where comfort was the first consideration and appearance the last. Bridgie's mending-basket stood on the floor, Jack's pipe peered from behind a chimney-piece ornament, and a bulky blotter and well- filled ink-bottle showed that the writing-table was really and seriously meant for use.

There was a writing-table in Miss Munns's drawing-room also, on which were set out, in formal order, a papier-mache blotter embellished with a view of York Minster by moonlight, a brass ink-stand, which would have been insulted by the touch of ink, and a penholder with a cornelian handle which had never known a nib. Not the most daring of visitors had ever been known to desecrate that shrine. When the mistress of the house wished to write a letter, she spread a newspaper over the dining- room table, and a sheet of blotting-paper over that, and carefully unlocked the desk which had been a present from Cousin Mary Evans on her sixteenth birthday!

It is extraordinary what a complete change of air may be obtained sometimes by merely crossing a road, or going into the house at the other side of a dividing wall! Sylvia felt that she might have travelled a hundred miles, so entirely different were the conditions by which she found herself surrounded.

By and by the three brothers arrived in a body, letting themselves into the house with a latch-key, and talking together in eager undertones in the hall. Bridgie sat still with a mischievous smile on her lips, and presently the drawing-room door was noiselessly opened for half a dozen inches, and round the corner appeared a brown head, a white forehead, and a pair of curious brown eyes. Sylvia's cheeks were as pink as her dress by the time that those eyes met hers, but she was the only person to show signs of embarrassment.

"Pat" came forward to shake hands with swift cordiality, followed in succession by Jack and Miles, and the three big brothers stood beside the sofa, looking down on their guest with kindly scrutiny. Pat's twinkling smile was an augury for future friendship; Miles's air of angelic sympathy was as good as a tonic; while the rapt gaze of Jack's fine eyes seemed to imply that never, no never, had he beheld a girl who so absolutely fulfilled his ideal of womanhood! It was nothing that the conversation was most ordinary and impersonal, concerning itself mostly with such matters as the weather, the trains from the city, and the Christmas traffic.

The atmosphere was full of subtle flattery, and Sylvia purred with satisfaction like a sleek little kitten that stretches up its neck to meet an unaccustomed caress. Nothing is so inspiring as appreciation, and she was quite startled by the aptness and brilliancy of her own remarks during the meal which followed.

Jack helped his guest in to dinner, and once again the pungent odour from the kitchen attracted notice and remark, whereat Bridgie bridled complacently, and when the macaroni was brought to table it did indeed look a most attractive dish to be the work of an amateur. So brown was it, so mellow of tint, with such promise of richness, that the general choice settled on it in preference to its more modest neighbour.

Sylvia was naturally helped in advance, and the moment of swallowing the first spoonful was momentous, and never to be forgotten. What had happened she could not tell; the room swam round her, the tears poured from her eyes. She recovered from a paralysing shock of surprise just in time to see Pat's mouth open wide to receive a heaped-up spoonful, to hear him roar like a wounded bull, and make a dash from the room.

"What is the matter?" cried Bridgie in amaze, and Jack smoothed out the smoking macaroni on his plate and replied cheerfully—

"Scalded himself as usual! He is so impetuous with his food. Do him good to have a lesson." Then he in his turn partook of the dainty, and his eyes grew bigger and bigger, rounder and rounder, the Adam's apple worked violently in his throat. For one moment it seemed as though he too would fly from the room, but presently the struggle was over, and he leaned back in his chair, pale and dejected, his glance meeting Sylvia's with melancholy sympathy.

"What is the matter?" queried Bridgie once more, and this time there was a touch of testiness in her voice, for it was trying to have her efforts treated with such want of appreciation, and even if the dish were not all that could be desired, consideration for her feelings might have kept her brothers silent before a stranger. "Miles, you taste it!" she cried, and Miles smacked his lips for a thoughtful moment, and pronounced sturdily—

"It's very good!"

Sylvia groaned involuntarily; she could not help it, and Jack gasped with incredulous dismay, staring at his brother as if he could not believe his senses.

"Well, I always did say that there was nothing in this wide world which would quell your appetite, but this beats everything! Take another spoonful—I dare you to do it!"

"All right, here goes! It's a very good mixture," said Miles complacently, swallowing spoonful after spoonful, while his vis-a-vis looked on with distended eyes, and Pat stood transfixed upon the threshold. As for Bridgie, her face brightened with relief, and she smiled upon her younger brother with grateful affection.

"That's right, Miles; never mind what they say! You are the greatest comfort I have. Some people are so saucy there is no pleasing them. You and I will enjoy it, if no one else will."

So far she had prudently refrained from experimenting on her own account, but now she took up her spoon, and there was a breathless silence in the room while she lifted it to her lips. It fell back on the plate with a rattle and clang, and an agonised glance roamed round the table from one face to another.

"Oh—oh—oh! How p-p-p-perfectly awful! What can have happened? It was so nice when I left it! Has anyone"—the voice took a tone of indignation—"have any of you boys been playing tricks on me?"

"How could we, now, if you think of it? We have been upstairs or in the drawing-room ever since we came back. It's not the will that's wanting, but the opportunity!" cried the boys in chorus; but it was not a time for joking, and Bridgie smote upon the table-gong with a determined hand.

"Then it must be Sarah's fault. She has done something to it. It is too bad—I took such pains!" She looked pathetically at the red marks which still lingered on her fingers from that painful cutting and scraping, and there was a distinct air of resentment in the voice in which she questioned her assistant a moment later.

Sarah was a round-faced, vacant-looking damsel of sixteen summers, who had come straight from an industrial home to serve in the O'Shaughnessy family. She was scrupulously clean, admirably willing, and so blindly obedient that in the bosom of the family she was known by the title of "Casabianca." She understood to a nicety how to dust and sweep, make beds and turn out a room, but the manners and customs of gentlefolk had been an unknown science to her before entering her present situation, and anything that Bridgie chose to do was, in her eyes, a demonstration of what was right and proper. She adored her young mistress, and trembled at the new tone of severity in which she was addressed.

"Please, ma'am, I did nothing at it!"

"But something has happened to it, Sarah—that's quite certain. Think now—think carefully what you have done since I left the kitchen. I am not angry, only anxious to find out what has gone wrong."

It was really most embarrassing. The three young gentlemen were watching her with laughing eyes, the pretty young lady in the pink dress was staring at her plate and twisting her lips to keep from smiling, the Missis sat up straight in her chair and looked so grave and masterful. Like Topsy of old, Sarah tried hard to find something to confess, but failed to recall any delinquencies.

"I took it out of the oven when you said, and put it on a plate. I brought it into the room—"

"You are quite sure you didn't let anything fall into it by mistake?"

"Please, ma'am, there was nothing to fall. I had tidied the things away before I touched it. I put the macaroni sticks back in the bag and the beeswax along of the turpentine for to-morrow's cleaning—all that you didn't use for the pudding."

"The—the—what?" gasped Bridgie breathlessly.

But the next moment a great burst of laughter all round the table greeted the solution of the mystery. Pat capered about the floor, Jack put his elbows on the table and peered at Sylvia with dancing eyes, Miles undauntedly helped himself to another spoonful, and wagged his head as who should say that, beeswax or no beeswax, he stuck to his favourable verdict on the "mixture." Bridgie's soft, gurgling laugh was full of unaffected enjoyment.

"Did ever I hear the like of that? It was a lump of beeswax, and I mistook it for cheese! It looked just like it—so smooth, and yellow, and hard—too hard, maybe—but I was blaming Mary for that, not the cheese, and thinking myself so good and economical to use it up! Beeswax and macaroni! Oh—oh—I'll never forget it while I live!"

"It's a very pretty nose you've got, dear, but it's not much use to you, I'm afraid," said Jack teasingly. "Did it never occur to you one moment that it was rather highly scented, and the scent a little different from the ordinary common or garden cheese?" and Bridgie shook her head in solemn denial.

"Never the ghost of a suspicion! It shows how easily our senses are deceived when we get a fixed idea in our heads; but indeed you were not much cleverer yourselves. Every man of you had something to say about the smell, but not a hint of what it was!"

"I thought it was rather spring-cleaningey," Sylvia said mischievously. "Never mind, Bridgie dear—it has been a great success. I do feel so much at home—more so than I should have done after a dozen formal dinners where everything went right. I shall always remember it too, and how Mr Miles declared it was nice!"

"Don't call him 'Mr,' please! He is only seventeen, though he is the champion eater of the world. I wonder what exactly is the effect of beeswax taken internally! You must tell us all about it, Miles, if you live to the morning!"

"How pleased Pixie will be!" murmured Bridgie reflectively, leaving her hearers to decide whether she referred to Miles's problematical disease or the latest culinary disaster, and once again Sylvia admired the happy faculty of seizing on the humorous side of a misfortune which seemed to be possessed so universally by the O'Shaughnessy family.



CHAPTER SEVEN.

A HAPPY INSPIRATION.

Mrs Geoffrey Hilliard stood in the long gallery of Knock Castle and drummed wearily on the window-pane with a white, heavily-ringed hand. It had rained for a whole week without stopping, and for the happiest girl in the world, as she proclaimed herself to be at least three times a day, she came perilously near feeling shedding tears of depression.

Geoffrey was out shooting, and the old Castle seemed full of ghosts— ghosts of the living, not of the dead—of those dear, gay, loving, teasing, happy-go-lucky brothers and sisters who had filled the rooms with echoes of song and laughter. Geoffrey was the dearest of husbands, but he had one great, insuperable failing—he was not Irish, and one phase of his wife's character was even yet an inexplicable riddle in his eyes. Why should she consider it monotonous to have her meals served regularly at a stated hour; why should she find infinite enjoyment in arranging a festivity in a rush and scramble, instead of making her plans with due leisure and decorum; why should she wear the latest Paris fashions on a day when the thermometer pointed to rain, and walk about in the sunshine in an ulster and deerstalker?—these, and many similar questions, were as puzzling to him as the fact that she found it absolutely impossible to do a thing twice over in the same way, or to master the very rudiments of method.

Geoffrey inherited the business instincts which had made his fathers successful above their competitors, and when he had become temporary owner of Knock, he had striven hard to introduce order and punctuality into the establishment, with more success in the servants' hall than in those regions where the mistress reigned supreme.

Esmeralda was a devoted wife, who would have gone through fire and water to ensure his happiness; she would have shared his poverty with a smiling face, and have worked her fingers to the bone on his behalf, but she seemed quite incapable of replacing the match-box on his dressing- room mantelpiece when she had borrowed it for her own use, or of refraining from taking his nail-scissors downstairs and then forgetting where she had put them.

Geoffrey on his part adored his beautiful wife, and would have fought a dozen dragons on her behalf, but when he groped in the dark for his matches, and knocked his pet ornaments off the chimney-piece, and barked his knee against a chair, and tried vainly to get out of the room through a blank wall—well, he was only a man after all, and he was not precisely lamb-like in temper.

Some such incident had happened this afternoon when the husband had made a complaining remark, and the wife had poured oil on the troubled waters by murmured allusions to people who were not really men, but "finnicky old maids." Geoffrey had stalked majestically from the room, leaving Esmeralda to reflect sadly how very unsatisfactory it was to quarrel when your adversary was dignified and English. With either of her three brothers such an introduction would have meant an enjoyable and lengthy wrangle; even "Saint Bridget" could snap on occasion, while Pixie was capable of screaming, "It is not—it is not!" until her breath failed, for pure love of contradiction.

Esmeralda yawned, and wondered what in the world she could do to while away the long afternoon. As the wife of a millionaire, with a professional cook in the kitchen who tolerated her mistress's incursions at stated hours only; with a wardrobe full of new clothes, and a French maid to sew up every hole almost before it made an appearance; with a gardener who did not like interference, and a patriarchal butler who said, "Allow me, madam!" if she dared to lift a hand for herself, life was not really half so amusing as in the dear old days, when she could make potato cakes for tea, re-trim old dresses, with Bridgie as model, and sit perched on one of the empty stages in the conservatory, while Dennis confided his latest love experiences and the gossip of the countryside.

Esmeralda had longed for riches all her life, and for the most part found the experience to her taste, but there were occasions when she felt fettered by the golden chains. When Bridgie wrote of her experiences in that funny, cramped little house, of her various devices for making sixpence do duty for a shilling, of excursions about London, when she rode with the boys on the tops of omnibuses and dined luxuriously at an ABC, it was not pity, but envy, which filled Esmeralda's bosom as she drove in state behind coachman and footman to pay dull, proper calls on the county magnates.

It was cold and dark in the gallery this December afternoon, so she went downstairs into the room which had been dedicated to lessons, when Miss Minnitt the governess tried to instil knowledge into half a dozen ignorant heads. It was now metamorphosed into a luxuriant little boudoir, with pots of hothouse plants banked on the table, a couch piled with silken cushions taking the place of the old horsehair sofa, a charming grate, all glowing copper and soft green tiles, and beside it a deep arm-chair and a pile of books to while away an idle hour. Esmeralda yawned and flicked over the pages of the topmost of the pile, looked at the beginning to see if it promised excitement, peeped at the last sentence of all to make sure there was no heart-breaking separation, finally sank down into the chair, and settled herself to read.

There was something wanting for perfect enjoyment, however, for in the old days she and Bridgie had agreed that the charms of an interesting book could only be thoroughly appreciated to an accompaniment of crisp sweet apples. Esmeralda O'Shaughnessy had been wont to climb up into the loft and bring down as many rosy baldwins as she could carry in the crown of her cap; but Mrs Geoffrey Hilliard crept down her own passages like a thief, listened breathlessly at the pantry door to make sure that Montgomery was absent, then abstracted an apple from each of the two pyramids of fruit already prepared for dinner, and flew back to her room, aghast at her own temerity.

The presence of the apples seemed to bring back other schoolgirl impulses, for instead of seating herself in dignified, grown-up fashion, she stretched herself on the rug before the fire, her back supported against the chair, her head drooping ever nearer and nearer the cushions, as warmth and quiet wrought their usual work. She slept and dreamt, and awoke with a start to hear a voice observing, "Tea is served, madam!" and to see Montgomery the immaculate standing over her with an unmoved expression, as if, in the many noble families in which he had served, it was an invariable custom to find his mistress fast asleep on the floor, with a half-gnawed apple in her hand!

Esmeralda crawled to her feet, trying vainly to look dignified, but she had no appetite for muffins. She felt like a child who has been found out, and blushed at the thoughts of her embarrassment that evening when the fruit pyramid was handed for her selection. Tea did not taste half so nice out of the Queen Anne silver as when it had been poured from the old brown pot, which had to be refilled so many times to satisfy clamorous appetites, and the longing for companionship made her hurry through the meal, and run upstairs to a wide room overlooking the park.

With the opening of the door came that sweet, flannely, soapy, violet- powdery smell which is associated with a well-kept nursery, and there on the rocking-chair sat Mistress Nurse with a bundle of embroidery on her knee, which purported to be O'Shaughnessy Geoffrey, the heir of the Hilliards.

"Oh, I'm so glad you have come, ma'am! I did so want you to see him. He has been so pert this afternoon. I don't know what to do with him, he is so pert! I never saw such a forward child for his age!"

Esmeralda's face softened to a beautiful tenderness as she turned down the Shetland shawl and looked at her little son. The pert child had a fat white face, with vacant eyes, a button of a nose, and an expression of preternatural solemnity. His head waggled helplessly from side to side as his nurse held him out at arm's length, and stared fixedly into space, regardless of his mother's blandishments.

"There now, isn't he pert?" repeated the triumphant nurse. "You know your mammie, my precious—yes, you do! The cleverest little sing that was ever seen! He will begin to talk, ma'am, before he is many months old, I'm sure he will! I was speaking to him just now, and he tried so hard to copy me. I said 'Goo-oo!' and he said 'Coo-oo!' Oh, you would have loved to hear him! He is a prince of babies, he is! A beautiful darling pet!"

Esmeralda beamed with maternal pride.

"He is clever!" she cried. "Fancy talking at three months old! I must write and tell Bridgie. And he looks so intelligent, too—doesn't he, nurse? So wise and serious! He stares at the fire as if he knew all about it. I believe his hair has grown since yesterday! I do, indeed!"

"He has beautiful hair—so fine! It's going to curl, too," declared the optimistic nurse, holding the child's head against the light, when the faintest of downs could be dimly discerned across the line of the horizon. "He will smile in a moment if you go on talking to him, ma'am. Perhaps you would like to sit down and take him for a bit?"

Yes, Esmeralda was only too willing, for it was only by act of grace and when Mistress Nurse felt inclined for a gossip in the servants' hall that she was allowed to nurse her own baby. She took the dear little soft bundle in her arms and rocked gently to and fro, studying the little face and dreaming mother dreams of the days to come.

If God spared him, the tiny form would grow strong, the vacant face would become bright and alert with life, the mite of a hand would be bigger than her own—a man's hand with a man's work as its inheritance. There was something awful in the thought, and in her own responsibility towards his future. Esmeralda never felt so serious, so prayerful, so little satisfied with herself, as when she sat alone with her baby in her arms. She knew nothing about children—very little, poor girl, of the wise training of father and mother, but the very consciousness of her own defects added earnestness to the resolve to bring up this child to be wise, and strong, and noble—a power for good in the world.

That was her resolve, renewed afresh from day to day, and after the resolve followed the relentless conviction that the change must be wrought in herself before she would have power to teach another. It would need a noble mother to train a noble son, a mother who was mistress over her own tongue to teach the lessons of self-control; a mother who had fought her own giants of vanity and self-seeking before she could hand on the sword. Esmeralda trembled and shrank weakly from the conflict, but the baby turned its wondering eyes upon her and straightway she was strong again.

"My son!" she murmured tenderly. "My little son! We shall love one another. Oh, how we shall love one another—you and I!"

The beautiful dark head bent low over the shapeless little bundle, and the croon of a cradle song accompanied the regular rocking of the chair. It was the most peaceful and charming of pictures, and the husband and father stood noiselessly on the threshold, almost unwilling to speak and destroy the effect.

All the afternoon he had been regretting his hasty words, and reproaching himself for want of forbearance towards his impetuous girl- wife. It was unreasonable to expect the habit of a lifetime to be outlived in a few short months, and at this season there were especial reasons for judging her tenderly. Poor darling! She had suffered a bitter disappointment!

Bridgie and the boys had found it impossible to spend Christmas at Knock, and although Joan had not confessed as much in words, the slackness of her preparations showed that she had lost all zest in the season. She had had a dull time of it since the birth of the boy, and it was only natural that she should long for her own people, especially those two dear sisters whose names were so constantly on her lips. If it were only possible to indulge her—to hit upon some plan by which Christmas could be made all she could desire!

Geoffrey knitted his brows in thought, then suddenly came the inspiration, and with it an exclamation of satisfaction which brought Esmeralda's eyes upon him. She smiled softly, and held up her face to receive his kiss—such a different face from the one which he had seen two hours before, with its curling lips and flushed, contemptuous smile! In its sweetness and subdued tenderness it was a type of the youthful Madonna, and Geoffrey's own expression softened in sympathy.

"Well, my dearie! Nursing your boy?"

Esmeralda turned back the shawl once more and held up the child for his father's inspection.

"There! Isn't he splendid? Nurse is quite excited about him this afternoon. She says it is wonderful how he gets on. He has been so 'pert,' as she calls it, that she hardly knew how to manage him."

"H'm!" The young father regarded the little face with amused, speculative eyes. "'Pert' does not commend itself to me as precisely the best word which could be found. Solemn little beggar, I call him! He seems quite oppressed by the wickedness of the world. I say, that's rather a peculiar mouth, isn't it? Something funny about the upper lip!"

"It's exactly like yours—the image of it!" said Esmeralda firmly. "You can't judge because naturally you can't see yourself. But it really is. Look at that old picture when you were two years old."

Geoffrey stroked his moustache to one side, and regarded himself critically in the mirror.

"Oh, well, there's hope for him yet!" he pronounced complacently. "I suppose babies are all ugly in the beginning, but considering his parentage he ought to come out all right by and by. How long do you suppose it will be before he gets his hair, and begins to be intelligible?"

"He has hair now, and he is beginning to speak. He said 'Coo-oo!' this afternoon quite distinctly. It's horrid of you, Geoff, to call him ugly! Everyone says he is a beautiful boy and the image of you!"

"Much more chance of being beautiful if he were like you, darling! Spoke, did he? Well, I take your word for it, but it's rather a stretch of imagination. He is a jolly little chap, anyway, and I'm very proud of him. Here is nurse coming to take possession. Hand him over and come along with me. I have something to tell you."

"Something nice, I hope! I want a distraction," said Esmeralda wistfully. She slid her hand through her husband's arm as they walked down the corridor and peered up in his face. "Somebody was rather vicious this afternoon! I'm sorry you put me in a temper. It's stupid to quarrel when we are so fond of one another. You'll never do it again, will you?"

"Never, never! It was all my fault, and I apologise abjectly to your temper for taking liberties with it. I ought to know by this time that it's in delicate health. Never mind, I've planned a delightful programme for you! What would you like best for a Christmas present if you had the choice?"

He was all radiant with smiles, but Esmeralda sighed, and a far-away expression came into her beautiful grey eyes.

"I'd like—Oh, what's the use of speaking of it, Geoff? They can't come, and that's all about it! I haven't thought of any present. I don't seem to care about anything else."

"Whisper!" cried Geoffrey triumphantly. "Whisper!" He bent his head, and Esmeralda put her ear to his lips, her face alight with expectation.

"Oh!" she cried rapturously, and again, "Oh!" and "Oh" in ever- ascending tones of delight. "Do you mean it, Geoff—really—really? It's like a fairy-tale—so perfectly lovely and charming! I shan't sleep a wink—I know I shan't! Geoffrey, you darling, I do love you for thinking of it!" and in an ecstasy of delight she threw her arms round his neck and kissed him rapturously.

"Any letters for the post, madam?" asked an even voice from the end of the corridor, and the husband wrenched himself free, while the wife stared after the departing figure with gloomy eyes.

"He saw me kiss you! The only marvel is he didn't offer to do it for me. The strain of behaving properly before that man will be the death of me, Geoffrey Hilliard!"



CHAPTER EIGHT.

A SURPRISE VISIT.

The next two days Jack came home early from the city, where a remarkable cessation of work had happened simultaneously with the arrival of Miss Sylvia Trevor at Number Three, Rutland Road. Bridgie trotted about the house preparing for the festival on Thursday, and Sylvia lay idly upon the couch, with nothing better to do than to listen, sympathise, and admire.

It was easy to listen, for in truth Jack gave her no opportunity to do anything else; it was impossible to resist admiring, for he made a handsome figure, with his broad, muscular shoulders, graceful carriage, and clean-shaven face; it had seemed at first sight as if sympathy were not required, but Master Jack invented a fresh crop of imaginary woes every time that he met a pretty girl, for the express purpose of receiving consolation. Sylvia beheld in him an exile from home and country, toiling at an uncongenial task, for the maintenance of his orphaned brothers and sisters, and was vaguely given to understand that since meeting her, his poverty had become an even more painful barrier to his hopes. He confided in her details of business, which she understood as well as a buried language, and asked her advice on knotty points in such a flattering manner that she forgot to notice that he never paused for a reply, and when at last he reluctantly rose to leave the room he sighed profoundly, and in a voice touched with emotion declared that she had helped him as he had never before been helped!

"I cannot thank you enough for your sympathy and counsel, but I shall never forget what you have said to me to-day. It will help me through many a dark hour!" he declared, and Sylvia blushed and gasped, and lay back on her cushions, all tremulous with excitement. It was her first experience of the art of flirtation, and she was pleased and flattered as it was natural for a girl to be, but she was a sensible little woman, despite her hasty speeches, and her vanity was not big enough to cloud either her judgment or a remarkably accurate memory. She carefully recalled to mind the late conversation, and found that her own share therein had been limited to monosyllabic assents and denials; an occasional, "Really!" and three or four exclamations of, "How sad!"

These, then, were the vaunted sympathy and counsel, these the eloquent words which Mr Jack had vowed to treasure in deathless remembrance, and which were to strengthen him in hours of trial! Sylvia blushed once more, from mortification this time, and registered a vow to adopt a new tone with this disciple of the Blarney stone, and put an end forthwith to sentimental confidences. She was still looking hot and flurried when Bridgie came into the room to prepare for tea, and to rest after the day's labours.

"You look tired, dear!" she said anxiously. "I hope Jack has not been talking too much. He just dotes upon romancing when he can get a listener, and I didn't like to interrupt when I knew he had come home especially to see you. Jack falls in love with every fresh girl he meets, and they mostly fall in love with him too. He has such lovely humbugging eyes!"

"Do they, indeed! He shan't humbug me, that's one thing certain!" was Sylvia's mental comment. Aloud she assented cordially. "Most handsome eyes! I call him unusually good-looking for a man, and he has amused me very much, but I am more than ready for tea, and a little of your society. There's the clatter of the cups. Welcome sound, it's music in my ears! How I used to long for it when I was ill!"

"I'll draw the curtains and make the room look cosy. That is one good thing about a tiny house—you can keep it warm. We were frozen in the great draughty barns of rooms at Knock, and Pixie used to look so quaint with her feet in snow-boots, and her hands in a muff, and her little nose as red as a cherry. It was so cold that it kept her awake at nights, until the Major bought an elegant little egg-cosy at a bazaar in Dublin, and she slept in it regularly through the frost. We used to go to kiss her last thing every night, every man Jack of us, for the pleasure of seeing her lying there, so peaceful, with the cosy perched over her nose! Muffins, dear? I didn't make them, so you may eat them with an easy mind."

Jack came downstairs at the summons of the tea-bell, looking in languishing fashion at his comforter as he entered the room, when, to his surprise, back came an answering glance, as it were parodying his own, the sentimental attitude belied by twinkling eyes and mischievous lips. The blush and tremor of an hour ago were conspicuous by their absence, and the change was by no means appreciated by the startled onlooker. In vain he tried to return to the old footing, accompanying the simplest remark with a hint of secret understanding, and waiting upon her with a deference which seemed humbly to inquire the reason of the change.

Sylvia bluntly inquired, "What is it?" in reply to his appealing looks, kept him trotting to and from the tea-table, and said, "How clumsy you are!" when his fingers touched her own over the cake-basket. Even Jack O'Shaughnessy found it impossible to continue flirting under these conditions, and devoted himself to the consumption of muffins with a crestfallen air, while Bridgie regarded him with fond commiseration from behind the tea-tray.

It was at this opportune moment that the clatter of wheels stopped at the door and the peal of the bell rang through the house. Sarah went to the door, and there was a movement and bustle in the hall, at the sound of which Bridgie nodded complacently.

"The Parcels Delivery van! I thought something must be coming. Have you any change, Jack? I've nothing smaller than sixpence, and the man will want a Christmas-box—a few coppers, perhaps."

"Oh, give the poor beggar half a crown. Don't insult him with coppers," said Jack in his lordly way, pulling a handful of silver from his pocket and selecting the largest coin of the number. "I'll take it to him myself. You might give him some tea if there is any left. It is perishingly cold outside!"

He stepped towards the door, but before he reached it, it was opened from without, a tall figure precipitated itself into the room, and with two separate cries of rapture the sisters flew to meet each other, and stood with locked arms, kissing, laughing, and questioning, with incredulous delight.

"Esmeralda darling! Is it really you? You are not a dream, dear, are you? I can't believe it's true!"

"It was Geoff's doing! He saw I was fretting for you, and suggested that we should come to town and stay over the New Year at an hotel. There was not time to get the house ready. A whole week, Bridgie! Won't we talk! There are such oceans of things to tell you. Baby is beginning to speak!"

"The precious mite!" Bridgie disentangled one hand and held it towards her brother-in-law in beaming welcome. "I always did say you were a broth of a boy, Geoffrey, but you have eclipsed yourself this time. I am so happy I don't know how to bear it. Now Christmas will be something like Christmas, and—" she smiled encouragingly into Sylvia's embarrassed face,—"we have a visitor staying with us to make things still more festive. My new friend, Miss Sylvia Trevor, who is recovering from a long illness."

Esmeralda wheeled round to face the sofa and stared at the stranger with haughty scrutiny. Her flowing skirts seemed to fill the little room; her cloak was thrown back, showing a glimpse of costly sable lining; her imperious beauty made her appear older than the gentle Bridgie, a hundred times more formidable. The formal bend of the head brought with it an acute sense of discomfiture to the recipient. For the first time since crossing that hospitable threshold she realised that she was a solitary unit, a stranger set down in the midst of an affectionate family party, and if it had not been for the crippling foot, she would have rushed away to the haven of the room upstairs. As it was, however, she was condemned to lie still and return Esmeralda's commonplaces with what grace she might.

"I am pleased to see you," said Esmeralda's tongue. "What a nuisance you are!" said the flash of the cold grey eyes. "Such a pleasure for Bridgie to have a friend." "But now that I have arrived, you are not wanted any longer, and are terribly in my way!" One set of phrases were as intelligible as the other to the sensitive invalid, and if Esmeralda's anticipations were dashed by her presence, she herself abandoned all prospect of enjoyment, and only longed to be able to return home forthwith.

Bridgie would not need her companionship any longer; she could be but a restraint and kill-joy in the conferences of newly-united sisters. She stared dismally at the floor, then looked up to see Jack carrying the tea-table bodily across the room and setting it down by her couch. Sarah had brought in fresh tea and cakes for the refreshment of the travellers, and he motioned slightly towards his sisters, saying in an undertone,—"Bridgie will be incoherent for an hour. Will you come to the rescue? If we don't look after the tea, no one else will."

He smiled at her as he spoke, not sentimentally this time, but with a straightforward kindliness which showed that he had understood and sympathised with her embarrassment. Occupation for hand and mind was the most tactful comfort which he could have administered, and Bridgie's eager, "Oh, thank you, dear! How good of you!" showed that she was indeed thankful to be relieved of every duty but that of talking to her sister and watching her with adoring eyes.

Sylvia's post was no sinecure, for everyone started tea-drinking afresh to encourage the travellers, and amidst the babble of voices Jack's sotto voce explanations made the conversation intelligible, and took away the feeling of being left out in the cold. At a touch of real sympathy the false sentiment had disappeared, and her heart warmed towards the young fellow for his kindly concern for her comfort. It was a bond of union also to remember that he himself was apt to resent the incursions of this domineering young matron, and she noted with delight that, while Bridgie was apparently delighted to be trampled underfoot, he was ready and able to hold his own.

"We came over in a rush, and arrived only two hours ago. I'm a disreputable object!" said Esmeralda, glancing complacently over her sweeping skirts, and arranging the immaculate frills at her throat. "Geoffrey was in such a hurry to get off that he gave me no time to make myself decent."

"She had only an hour, poor thing, not a moment longer! She sent me flying off to look for trains and whistle for a hansom, and then kept me kicking my heels while she prinked before the glass, putting on her best dress and the newest hat to impress you with her magnificence. She is disappointed that you have not noticed them yet, that's why she pretends to be humble!" explained Geoffrey in self-defence, whereat his wife grimaced at him in a manner singularly undignified and eloquent. Then she glanced hastily across the room at Sylvia, looking so girlish, so abashed at having been discovered in her schemes, that Sylvia laughed involuntarily, and forgot the old offence.

"Husbands are such blighting creatures; they are always telling the truth upon you!" sighed Esmeralda sadly. "I intend to bring up Bunting to agree with all I say, and then there will be some chance of making an impression. He is left at home, for he is too young to miss us, and it was bad weather for moving a nursery.

"Now about to-morrow! We have arranged for you to spend the day with us, and have lunch and dinner in our private room. The servants can eat up your turkey, or it can wait until the next day. You must come to us directly after church. What train will you be able to catch?"

Bridgie knitted her brows and looked embarrassed and distressed. The invitation could not, of course, be accepted, and it was thoughtless of Esmeralda to have given it under existing circumstances. Had not Sylvia been introduced as a convalescent, and did not her position on the couch prove that she was unable for a journey to town? It would make the poor dear so uncomfortable if she were cited as the obstacle; yet what other excuse could be made?

Esmeralda had travelled all the way from Knock for the pleasure of entertaining her brothers and sisters, and would not be lightly turned from her plans. Bridgie looked across the room, and met Jack's eyes turned upon her with a flash of indignation in their clear depths.

"Well, Bridgie, you can do as you like, but I give you full notice that I stay at home!" he said firmly. "I have never yet eaten my Christmas dinner in an hotel, and I never shall so long as I have a roof of my own to cover me. Choose between Esmeralda and me; I am the head of the family, and it is my privilege to play host on such occasions, but if the house is too small—if we are not grand enough for Mrs Hilliard—"

"Jack!" cried Esmeralda sharply. She pushed her cup on one side, and, springing across the room to her brother's side, laid her hands on his shoulders and shook him vigorously to and fro. "Come down this minute from that high horse! I won't be snubbed, when I've come all the way over from Ireland to see you. I thought you would like it, dear, because you enjoyed dining with us so much before, and we should have been quite private in our own room; but I don't mind where we are, so long as we are together. We will come and dine with you if you will ask us. I would far rather have stayed here altogether if you could have put us up!"

"We could stow you away, but we can't manage the retinue. Miss Trevor occupies the north-west Tudor corridor, and there is only Pixie's little den at liberty," said Jack, laughing, and recovering his complacency with wonderful quickness. "The servants' hall accommodation is also limited, and your maid and valet might not appreciate our menage. We had a very stylish pudding the other night. You might give Esmeralda the recipe, Bridgie."

Esmeralda listened to the history of the beeswax and macaroni with a joy tempered by regret.

"We never have anything so nice as that!" she sighed. "Never a bit of excitement as to how things will turn out. D'you remember the day when old Sukey mixed the lettuce with furniture cream instead of salad- dressing, and Major Denny was so polite, with a crust of bread under one end of his plate to let it drain down to the bottom, while he ate his meat high and dry at the top! 'Twas bad luck that none of us fancied lettuce that day, but kept pressing him to a second helping."

"Well, we will come here to-morrow morning, then. Don't stay away from church, for, truthfully, I would rather you were out when we arrived. I have some rather—large—Christmas presents which must be smuggled in unobserved. I have some—er—preparations to make to-night, so we can't stay very long."

Half an hour later husband and wife took their departure, and after seeing them off, Jack came back into the drawing-room and stood by Sylvia's couch.

"Esmeralda invariably speaks before she thinks!" he said apologetically. "There's a lot of pretence about her, but you will be astonished to find out what a good sort she is when you know her better."

Sylvia smiled with a whimsical twist of the lips. She thought that that prediction might apply to more than one member of the O'Shaughnessy family, and cherished a pleasant conviction that Jack's outburst of indignation had been more on her account than his own. He was not the type of man to stand on his dignity, and his quick glance into her face as Esmeralda gave her invitation had been eloquent of understanding. His protest had saved her from a most distasteful position, and once again she felt a debt of gratitude towards him.



CHAPTER NINE.

CHRISTMAS PRESENTS.

Christmas morning was heralded by the luxury of a late breakfast, when no one need hurry off to town, and even Miles could satisfy the demands of appetite without casting a thought to the time-table. Porridge, bacon, eggs and sausages laid the foundation of his meal, before he tackled marmalade, strawberry jam, fresh oranges and honey, accompanied by numerous draughts of tea and coffee, and finally by a cup filled with the united drainings of both pots, which he drank with obvious relish.

If it had been merry Pat who was so difficult to appease, there would have been no cause for astonishment, but Miles's rapt eyes and ethereal expression seemed to bespeak no stronger diet than moonbeams and mountain dew, and to hear him accompany his last mouthful with an eager, "When's lunch?" was a distinct shock to the visitor. Jack, too, had sustained a relapse into sentiment, and was only awaiting opportunity to wax melancholy and confidential. With a word of encouragement he would have stayed away from church to bear her company, but Sylvia was provokingly obtuse, and he went off looking unutterable reproaches with his "humbugging eyes."

Left to herself, Sylvia hobbled to the piano and sang Christmas hymns in a weak little voice, which wavered suspiciously towards the close. Christmas is the day of all others when families are united, and it seemed hard that when she possessed just one beloved relation, he should be away off at the other end of the world. The strange house, the unusual silence, and her own inability to move about, added to the feeling of depression, and her thoughts turned towards Aunt Margaret with unusual yearning. The old lady was at times a sore trial to her niece's patience, but at least they had a claim on each other's affection; she was the dear father's sister, and her own legal guardian during his absence!

Sylvia wondered how the two ladies would pass their day—church in the morning as a matter of course; early dinner and reminiscences of the brougham and peach-houses; arrival of the postman with cards; renewed reminiscences and family histories of the various senders; one arm-chair at each side of the fire; two white caps nodding sleepily forward; two pairs of cashmere boots reposing on footstools. Arrival of tea and exchange of recipes and household experiences. Letters of thanks to valued friends for seasonable gifts. Supper of cold turkey and cocoa, with anecdotal references to Christmases of long ago. Mutual exchange of compliments, bed, nightcaps, and sleeping-socks.

Oh dear me! It all seemed very flat to one-and-twenty, and why should one girl have health and beauty, and brothers and sisters, and an adoring young husband into the bargain, and another be a solitary unit, with no one to cosset her and help her to bear her manifold infirmities?

Sylvia's tears were still rather near the surface, and she mopped her eyes with her handkerchief, and mopped them again, and then carefully dried them on a dry place, and craned forward to look in the glass and see if they looked very red and tell-tale. The bleared reflection had a wonderfully calming effect, and she limped to her couch and read persistently to distract her thoughts, until the peal of the bell announced the Hilliards' arrival. From her corner she could not see the doorway, but judging from the sounds of coming and going, of dragging heavy weights, of scurrying along the passage, of whispered colloquies, and sudden explosions of laughter, it was evident that some great mystery was in the air.

Then the cab drove away, the dining-room door closed with a bang, she heard the furniture being dragged to and fro, and wondered how long it would be before the drawing-room was raided in its turn. For a quarter of an hour the conspirators remained shut up together, then Esmeralda came sailing into the room, all smiles and amiability.

"A happy Christmas to you, Miss Trevor! Excuse me for not coming in before, but I am so anxious to arrange my presents before the others come home from church. I want the easel from that corner, and I want you to promise faithfully that you won't come into the dining-room before you are allowed!"

"I can't walk so far without help. You are quite safe so far as I am concerned," said Sylvia regretfully, and Esmeralda looked at her with quick scrutiny.

"So bad as that! I didn't know. Is that why you have been crying?"

"No—oh no! I am used to that now. I felt a little lonely, that's all. I wanted my father."

The beautiful face changed suddenly, the lips tightened, the eyes grew large and strained. There was a ring of pain in the clear voice.

"Is he dead?"

"No, no, only so far-away. At the other end of the world, in Ceylon!"

"You will see him again!" said Esmeralda shortly. She looked at the portrait of a handsome, reckless face which hung on the wall above the sofa, and drew a fluttering sigh. "That was my father. It is nearly two years since he had his accident, and I thought I could never be happy again. If I could write to him, if I could get his letters, and think that some day, it might be in twenty years to come, he would be back among us again, I should feel as if there was nothing else to wish for."

She sat down suddenly by the couch with an air of having forgotten all about the errand which had brought her into the room, clasped her hands round her knee, and began a series of disconnected childish memories, while Sylvia gazed spellbound at the beautiful, dreamy face, and wondered how she could ever have thought it cold and unfeeling.

"We were always such chums, from the time that I was a mite in pinafores. I remember his first explaining to me what happened when people died—how their bodies were put into the grave, while their souls went straight to heaven; but I didn't understand what a soul was, and I was frightened and cried out, 'Well, I won't go one step without my body!' I used to play tricks on him, and he would catch me up and carry me into his room, and say, 'Will you rather be poisoned, or buried alive?' and I would prefer the poisoning because it was chocolates out of the corner cupboard.

"He used to wake me in the mornings coming battering at my door, and singing, 'Come awake thee, awake thee, my merry Swiss lass!' and when we were learning French fables from Miss Minnitt, we used to take arms, Bridgie and I, and walk up and down before him reciting, 'Deux compagnons presse d'argent!' It didn't make any difference whether he had the money or not—he always gave it to us.

"One day we were going for a picnic, and he walked on with the men, leaving me to drive after them in the cart with the provisions. There was only one thing he told me to remember, and that was just what I forgot—his camera, to take a special view which he'd wanted for an age. Four miles from home it jumped into my mind, and I sat in misery the rest of the way. The Major laughed when I told him, and sympathised with me for my upset. 'You'll forget your own head next, and it will be a pity,' he said, 'for it's a very pretty one.'

"I hated to vex him just because he was so sweet about it. No one ever understood me as well as the Major, and when I was in a tantrum he would say, 'Think it over till to-morrow, my girl. If you are of the same mind then, we will discuss it together,' and, of course, I never did think the same two days running.

"When he was ill he used to lie looking at me, and his face was quite different from that in the picture—so sad and wistful. 'I've not done much in the way of training you, my girl,' he would say, 'but I've loved you a great deal. Maybe that will do as well. You are not one to stand a bridle.' He loved to have me with him; to the last he would stretch out his hand—"

Her voice quivered and stopped, and Sylvia sat with lowered eyes, murmuring incoherent condolences. Esmeralda's love for her dead father was very sweet and touching, but to the more reserved nature it seemed an extraordinary thing that she could speak so openly to a stranger, and in the twinkling of an eye change her mood from gay to grave.

The hands of the clock were approaching the hour when the rest of the family might be expected to return from church, yet there she sat dreaming over the past, and apparently absolutely forgetful of the demands of the present. Sylvia dare not risk a reminder which would seem in the last degree unfeeling, but presently the door opened, and Geoffrey Hilliard appeared on the threshold, looking round with anxious inquiry.

"Good morning, Miss Trevor. The compliments of the season." Then he looked at his wife, all incredulous and aghast. "My dear girl, what are you about? Do you know that at any moment Bridgie may be here? I thought you had come for the easel."

Esmeralda leaped to her feet with a cry of dismay. "Hurry! hurry!" she cried. "Oh, what are you waiting for? Carry it for me. Be quick! be quick!" and off she rushed with a swirl of flounces, a rustle of silk, a wild waving of arms, while her husband chuckled with amusement, and confided in Sylvia—

"That's the usual programme! First keeps me waiting for hours, and then upbraids me for being slow. Keep Bridgie occupied if she comes in too soon, please, Miss Trevor. This little surprise needs a good deal of preparation."

What could it be? Sylvia grew quite excited as once more peals of laughter echoed from the dining-room. Esmeralda was evidently sparing no pains to display her presents to the best advantage, and, lucky girl, no want of money had hampered her choice of what would be appropriate and welcome.

"I'm glad I gave Bridgie my minute offering this morning, so that it won't be shamed by contrast. I shall be out of this distribution, so it doesn't matter, but I do hope they will ask me to go in," said Sylvia to herself. "I hated Esmeralda last night, but I rather love her this morning. She is like the little girl in the rhyme—when she is nice she is very, very nice; but when she is bad she is—horrid!"

After all, the mysterious preparations were completed before the return of the church party, for the service had been unusually lengthy, and Esmeralda was champing with impatience before the latch-key clicked in the lock. There was great kissing and hugging beneath the mistletoe, and Bridgie was sent flying upstairs to take off her wraps, in preparation for the great exhibition.

"I have laid out our presents in the dining-room, and they take up all the table, so there will be no dinner until they are distributed. I've lighted the lamp, dear, to make it look more festive. Hope you don't mind? It was just the least thought in the world gloomy in that back room this morning."

"Anything you like, dear! anything you like!" cried Bridgie the docile; then she looked at Sylvia, and beamed with satisfaction as Geoffrey offered his arm to support the invalid's halting footsteps.

They led the way together, and she seated herself in state in an arm- chair, while the brothers and sisters crowded in at the doorway, exclaiming volubly at the sight which met their eyes.

The table had been pushed lengthways against the window, the crimson curtains making an effective background to its heaped-up treasures. The lamp stood at the farther end of the room, casting a subdued rosy light on the eager faces. It was not exactly a "cheery" illumination, but it was certainly becoming, and lent an air of mystery to the everyday surroundings.

"A new lamp-shade! How lovely! Pink silk and roses. Wouldn't it make a sweet garden hat?" exclaimed Bridgie rapturously. "Is that my present, Joan? How did you know I wanted a shade?"

"That's a present for the house; yours is over there in that round box; Geoffrey will hand it to you. There's a present for everybody, and one for you all together. You'll see that last!"

At that every eye turned curiously at the curtained picture-frame which stood artfully supported by boxes at the place of honour at the farther end of the table. Evidently this was the grand climax of the entertainment, but meantime there were half a dozen excitements in store, all calling for rapturous acknowledgments.

Bridgie's round box was found to contain a muff of real Russian sable, on receiving which, to use her own expressive phrase, she "nearly swooned with delight." She sat purring over it, and rubbing it fondly against her cheeks, while dandy Jack was presented with a dressing-case, fitted with silver and ivory, Pat with a handsome camera, and Miles with a bicycle deftly wheeled from behind the curtains.

Even the servants had been remembered, for there was a bulky parcel addressed to each name, and Sylvia grew red with mingled pleasure and embarrassment as a casket of French bon-bons was deposited on her knee. It was a delightful scene, and not the least delightful part of it was the enjoyment of the young couple themselves, and their whole-hearted participation in the pleasure of the recipients.

It is the custom of most donors to depreciate their gifts, but that was not Esmeralda's way. Not a bit of it! She was a capital show-woman, and if by chance any detail of perfection passed unnoticed, she pointed it out forthwith, and dilated at length upon its virtues. Jack turned over the silver-topped bottles, and peeped at his reflection in the mirror; Miles tingled his bicycle-bell, and balanced himself on the saddle; Sylvia handed round bon-bons and surreptitiously fumbled to discover how many rows the box contained; and Pat demanded immediate orders for family groups. It took some little time to restore order, but Geoffrey stood patiently waiting until he could make himself heard, his hand stretched out to uncover the curtained frame.

"Now for the general present! With best wishes to the family circle, from Joan and myself. Are you ready? Very well, then, here you are! One, two, three!"

With the last word he whisked off the cloth, and a gasp sounded through the room, followed by a silence more eloquent than words.

Sylvia stared with widened eyes at the picture of a girl's head, strangely like and yet unlike that precious photograph which Bridgie had exhibited with so much pride. It was Pixie—that was quite evident—but an older, bigger, wonderfully smartened edition of the elf-like child. The dark locks were rolled back in pompadour fashion over a high cushion, the plait turned up in a queue, fastened at the nape of the neck by an enormous outstanding bow; the cheeks were fuller in outline, and the disproportion between nose and mouth less marked. She was by no means pretty, yet there was a charm about the quaint little face which made the onlooker smile involuntarily and feel a sudden outgoing of affection.

"P-pixie!" gasped Bridgie in a breathless whisper. She rested her cheek against the muff, and stared before her with rapt grey eyes. "Pixie's portrait! Oh, Esmeralda—what a lovely thought! You had it taken for us? You sent to Paris for it?"

"Yes—yes!" cried Esmeralda gleefully. "I knew it would please you more than anything else to have her with us. Do you like it? Do you think it is good? Is it quite like her?"

"It's like—yes, but not quite lifelike. Does she really do her hair like that? I can't imagine Pixie looking so neat. She looks grave, too—graver than she ever looked, except when she was up to mischief. I hope she is not fretting, poor child! Oh, it makes me long for her more than ever! I could look at it all day long!"

Jack stroked his chin, and smiled contentedly.

"That's what I call something like a present! It's a rattling good portrait of the Piccaninny, judiciously flattered as portraits ought to be. We can't see it, though, in this light. Let me put the lamp a little nearer, or take off the shade."

Esmeralda, however, was standing next the lamp, and refused to move aside.

"We arranged it to give the best light, so it's no use trying to improve it. The best view is from over there by the door," she said in her masterful fashion which would brook no contradiction. "One can never see a picture to the best advantage by lamp-light, but you must make allowances for that. Do you think it is well done? It is by a very good master!"

"Rather starry about the eyes!" said Pat critically.

"Laid on the red rather too thickly about the cheeks!" objected Miles.

Bridgie put down her muff, and went stooping across the room to get a nearer view.

"Is it oil or water-colour? I seem to know the frame. Oh, it is like her, Esmeralda—oh, so like! Pixie, Pixie, my little Pixie!"

"Bridgie!" cried an answering voice. The picture swayed, rocked forward, and fell on its face on the table; a little figure stood squeezed in between the table and the window. It was no picture, but a reality. Pixie herself stood among them in warm, living flesh and blood!



CHAPTER TEN.

PIXIE'S REMINISCENCES.

It is wonderful what money can do—in conjunction with generous impulse and ingenious brain. Esmeralda hung on to Bridgie's arm relating in breathless accents how, being herself unable to go abroad until after the New Year, the happy inspiration had occurred to Geoffrey of despatching the French maid to her native city to bring back the dear living Christmas present which now stood before them; how the travellers had arrived on the previous evening, afire with delight at their own share in the conspiracy; how she herself had conceived the idea of presenting Pixie in the form of a portrait, and had brought the frame from home, and tacked across it a piece of black gauze to heighten the picture-like effect.

"And I put the lamp as far-away from it as possible, and covered it over so that she might not have to keep still too long. Oh, if you could only have seen yourselves staring at her, and taking it all in grim earnest! I never, never enjoyed anything so much in my days!"

"Is it oil colours I am, or water? I'm flattered, ain't I, as a portrait ought to be? Ye couldn't imagine I could be so neat!" cried Pixie tauntingly, as she pirouetted to and fro on the top of the table, to which she had lightly sprung at the first moment of discovery. She looked like a big French doll, as she swung from side to side, her hands outheld, her shoulders raised, her tiny feet twinkling to and fro. Her pink frock was marvellously smart, the flounces stood out in jaunty fashion around the ankles, the sash encircled a tiny waist, and the brothers and sisters stood looking on, joy, incredulity, amaze written upon their faces.

Bridgie's arms kept stretching out and falling back to her side with automatic regularity, and still the little figure pranced, and gesticulated, and blew kisses to right and left, at one moment a merry Irish vagabond, at the next a French marionette—all smirks and bows and shrugging shoulders.

"We got the better of you that time, I'm thinking! Oh, la-la! how it was droll to hear you all making your pleasantries upon me while I kept still—so still! I have never been so still but when I am up to mischief. If ye could have seen under the table, I was shaking like a jelly, but Esmeralda said, 'I'll pack ye back as quick as ye came if you spoil it on me, after all me trouble!'"

"Figure it to yourselves; I was sitting so triste by myself in the salon, thinking of you all at home, and the fun ye'd have without me, and the slices of plum-pudding fried up the next day the way I like them best, and never a bite to come my way, when behold I the door opened, and there enters to me Marie, all smiles and complaisance. Everything is altered, she bears a letter from Madame Hilliard—I must pack my box, and say my farewells, and be ready to start by the train next day. Fortunately all is ready. Therese has already prepared for my return. There was nothing to do but lay the things in the box and drive away."

"And what did Therese say to it all? How did she and Pere like parting from you in such a hurry?"

"They wept!" said Pixie tragically. Her shoulders approached her ears in eloquent gesture. "But how they wept! I also wept to see them weep, and Marie wept to leave her dear Paris." She paused, and the solemn expression gave place to a broad smile of enjoyment.

"There wasn't a dry rag between the four of us, and Pere took snuff to console himself, and that started him crying harder than ever. I was so flurried I couldn't tell which was the topmost, joy or sorrow, until we had ham and eggs for breakfast this morning, and I felt I was at home. It's an awful thing to live in a country where there's never a bite of solid food to cheer your spirits in the morning! Many's the time me heart would bleed, thinking of Miles if he'd been there. Are ye glad to see me, boys, now you know that I'm real?"

There was no doubt about that. When at last the little sister condescended to step down from her perch, she was passed from one to another in a series of bear-like hugs, from which she emerged flushed and complacent, to step briskly towards Sylvia and kiss her effusively upon the cheek.

"How d'ye do, me dear, and how's your illness? I've heard so much about it that I expected to see you worse. You look too pretty to be an invalid!"

"Hear, hear!" muttered Jack softly.

Sylvia blushed and gripped the little hand which lay so confidingly in her own.

"Thank you very much. I am getting better, but I don't feel at all pretty. I'm lame, and have to limp about wherever I go, and my hair is tumbling out. I have the greatest difficulty to make it look respectable. I shall be bald soon!"

Pixie craned forward and examined her head with sorrowful candour.

"It is thin! Ye can see the scalp shining through like shot silk. You'll look like an old man with a bald head; but never mind! Think of the saving in the morning! It will be so easy to do your hair!"

There was a burst of laughter from brothers and sisters, while Sylvia covered her face with her hands and rocked to and fro in mock despair.

"You need never be unduly elated by a compliment from Pixie, Miss Trevor," said Geoffrey Hilliard meaningly. "She is the most transparently truthful person I ever encountered, and favoured me with several character sketches of my wife before we were engaged, which might have warned me of my fate if I'd been a sensible fellow. I have remembered them, Pixie, many a time since then, and I'm glad to find your foreign experiences have not affected your candour. There's another thing that is not much altered, so far as I can hear—and that's your brogue, my dear! It sounds to me almost as pronounced as in the old days when you were running wild at Knock."

"But it's got a French accent to it now—that's better than English!" cried Pixie eagerly. "I was learning to speak quite elegantly in Surbiton, but Therese wouldn't listen to a word of English out of my mouth, and if you'll believe me, me dears, my very dreams are in French the last few months. There was a jeune fille in Paris who used to promenade with us sometimes for the benefit of hearing me talk English. She said the words didn't sound the same way as when they taught them to her at school. Helas le miserable! The brogue of her put shame on me own before I came away."

The shoulders went up again, and a roguish smile lit up the little face. Bridgie watched it with rapt, adoring eyes; her Pixie, her baby, was now a big girl, almost grown-up, transformed from the forlorn-looking elf to a natty little personage, more like the pictures of jeunes filles on the back of French pattern plates than she could have believed possible for Irish flesh and blood. Imitative Pixie had caught "the air," and the good Therese had evidently taken immense pains with the costume in which her pupil should make her reappearance in the family circle.

Bridgie gazed at the buckled, high-heeled shoes peeping from beneath the flounces, and wondered if it could really be that they held the same little feet which used to patter about, buttonless, and down at heel; she looked at the jaunty, outstanding bow which tied back the hair, and contrasted it with the wisp of ribbon twisted to the proportions of a tape, and knotted like a cat-o'-nine-tails, which used to bind together the straggly locks, and as she looked, she felt—shall it be confessed?—a pang of longing and regret for the days that were no more. It passed in a moment, for whatever her external appearance might be, Pixie was transparently the same at heart, and quick to note the faintest shadow on the face of the dear mother-sister. She swung round to face Bridgie, the grey eyes bent upon her in earnest scrutiny.

They saw something written there that had not been visible two years before—the outward marks of an inward, and very bitter struggle, and Bridgie flushed beneath the scrutiny of that clear-seeing, childlike gaze, and trembled at the thought of what was to come.

"Has anyone been unkind to ye, Bridgie?" asked Pixie in deep, full- throated tones. She put up her hand and stroked the soft cheek with a tenderness of pitying love which was more eloquent than words. "There are dips in your cheeks, like Miss Minnitt's when she was getting over the fever, and your eyes look tired. What has happened to worry ye, me dear, and take the colour out of your face?"

"She has enough colour to satisfy you at the moment, hasn't she?" Jack said, laughing, and Pixie nodded with ruthless candour.

"Because she is blushing. What are you blushing for, you silly girl? It isn't as if I had asked about a heart affair. The girls in France were always talking of heart affairs, and asking if you were fiancee. They thought you were very old, and must be going to coif Saint Catherine. That means that you are going to be an old maid. I said yes, of course you were, because you were needed at home. Esmeralda was no use, but we could not get on without Bridgie!"

"You miserable, ungrateful child! This is my reward for all I have done for you!" declaimed Esmeralda with dramatic emphasis, but Bridgie's face lit up with a smile of whole-hearted satisfaction.

Thank God! Whatever her personal disappointment might be, she could never feel that she was alone in the world—that among all its teeming millions there was no human being whose happiness depended upon her presence; she had been spared that worst trial to a woman's heart, and Pixie's calm taking-for-granted that she was indispensable to the family circle was the greatest comfort which she could have given.

"No, I shan't leave you, darling. I have too much to do looking after you and those three big boys, and when you fly away to nests of your own, Sylvia and I have all sorts of plans for enjoying ourselves together. I have promised faithfully to wheel her about in her Bath- chair."

"And I will make your caps. I'm clever at millinery," said Sylvia, pretending not to hear Jack's murmurs of protest, and looking very pretty and animated as she sat erect in her chair and gesticulated with her thin little hands. "You shall have one with pearl dangles for high days and holidays, and nice, stiff little black bows for ordinary wear. We will knit socks and mittens, and play cribbage in the evening, and talk over the days of our youth. It's almost a pity we know each other now, for we shan't be able to romance as much as we would like!"

"Perhaps the romance will come in in some other way! Perhaps a husband may interfere with the claims of Saint Catherine!" said Geoffrey, putting into words the language of Jack's eyes, and everybody stared at Sylvia's face with embarrassing curiosity.

"I shall never marry!" she said obstinately. Not that she meant it in the least, for she did not, but she was one of the girls who foolishly think it the right thing to protest in public, and who are mistaken enough to feel a trifle ashamed of the natural womanly longing for someone to love and to protect them, which God Himself has put in their hearts. A few girls there may be who honestly mean such a decision, but they are very few indeed, while their hearers are invariably sceptical.

Not one of the O'Shaughnessys seemed in the least impressed by Sylvia's disclaimer, and it was disconcerting to hear Pixie's sympathetic, "Did no one ever ask ye? Never mind! They may still. You are not so very old!"

Sylvia made up her mind there and then that it was better to say exactly what one meant in the presence of Miss Pixie O'Shaughnessy!



CHAPTER ELEVEN.

ESMERALDA CHECKMATED.

Three days after Christmas, Esmeralda and her husband returned to Ireland, scattering invitations, severally and in bulk, to all the inhabitants of Number Three, Rutland Road. Even Sylvia found herself invited for a long visit, and was the more surprised at this mark of favour because Mrs Hilliard's demeanour towards her was tinged with jealousy and uneasy suspicion. She was willing enough to play Lady Bountiful, present offerings of fruit and flowers, and be gushingly sympathetic, but she liked to monopolise the whole attention of her sisters, and was not well pleased when they in their turn hung about the invalid's couch. She had not been an hour in the same room, moreover, before she had intercepted one of Jack's most melting glances, and the stare of the great grey eyes left no doubt as to the disapproval with which she viewed the flirtation.

Sylvia's annoyance converted her into a very hedgehog of dignity, and the prickly quills kept the young fellow at such a distance that he lost faith in his own fascinations for the first and only time in his career. He bade Esmeralda an affectionate farewell, but was in truth well resigned to her departure—a fact which she was quite sharp enough to discover.

"Jack is pleased that I am going away!" she said to Bridgie as the two sisters sat together for the last confidential chat. "He knows that I watch him flirting with Sylvia Trevor, and thinks he will get on better without me. You really ought to be careful, Bridgie, and not let them be too much together!"

"Does he flirt with her? Not more than he does with every other girl," said Bridgie leniently. "I don't see why I should worry myself about it. Sylvia is a sensible girl, who is not given to fancying that every man is in love with her, and Jack is just a dear, soft-hearted boy, who can't help making pretty speeches, but he would never make serious love if he did not mean it, and if he did—well, why not Sylvia as well as anyone else?"

But Mrs Geoffrey Hilliard was not to be so easily appeased. She threw back her haughty head, lowered languid eyelids, and drawled out—

"My dear Bridgie, remember whom you are speaking about! Jack is the head of the family—he's O'Shaughnessy of Knock! Eventually, as we hope and believe, he will go back to take up his own position, and, thanks to Geoff, the property will be in a very different condition from what it was when he left. He must make a marriage which will be a help, not a hindrance. And who is she? Answer me that! What do you know about her?"

"She is a dear girl! She is very attractive! Her father is abroad. She lives with an old aunt."

"Exactly! A pleasant girl in a London suburb!" Esmeralda's voice was full of ineffable condescension. "There are thousands of them, and no doubt they are charming in their way, but not for Jack. He owes a duty to the family as well as himself, and you ought to tell him as much. You really ought, Bridgie! Speak to him at once, before it goes too far!"

"Suppose you speak to him yourself! When you are so hot upon it, it's a pity to leave it to me."

"No, I'd rather not. Jack is so stupid about taking advice. He would snap my nose off if I said anything."

"I really don't see why my nose is not as valuable as yours! Why should I do your disagreeable work for you?" retorted Bridgie with spirit. "You did not know that Geoffrey was a rich man when you promised to marry him, and it's the last thing I would think of myself, so why should we expect any more of Jack? I am not going to interfere, whatever happens, and if you take my advice you won't mention Sylvia's name to him!"

"I don't intend to, but—"

Esmeralda shut her lips tightly over an unspoken determination. There are more ways than one of nipping in the bud an incipient love affair, but she did not care about confiding her latest inspiration to any hearer, least of all to Bridgie, who would have given up her most cherished plans rather than hurt the feelings of a fellow-creature. She changed the subject, and talked lightly on impersonal topics until the moment of parting drew near, when there came a sudden softening over the beautiful face, and she said in gentle, diffident tones—

"I didn't like to ask before, but I can't leave without knowing, darling. Have you heard?"

Bridgie shook her head mutely, and the lines which Pixie had noticed deepened round her eyes and mouth, but the eyes smiled still—a brave, steady smile.

"I never shall hear now, Joan. I've made up my mind to that."

"I don't know how you bear it! I can't think how you manage to be so composed and cheerful! If Geoff had treated me like that, it would have soured me for life. You were never sour from the first, and now you seem quite happy. Yet, as Pixie says, you have a pathetic look which shows that you have not really forgotten. You still care, Bridgie dear?"

"I shall always care," said Bridgie quietly. "There's an ache at the back of my heart, but there are so many things at the front that it gets crowded out. Besides, you know, Esmeralda darling, I don't want to seem to praise myself, but it's a trouble which God has sent me, and I ask Him every night to help me to bear it in the right way. It wouldn't be the right way to let the shadow of it darken other lives besides my own. If I moped and grizzled, everyone in the house would be uncomfortable, and they have their own worries, poor creatures, without suffering for mine! I made an excellent rule for my own benefit—to laugh downstairs and cry in my own room, and it answers beautifully, for I'm so tired when I get to bed that I've no sooner begun repining than I wake up and find it's morning. You try it, dear, when you've got a worry. You'll find it splendid!"

Esmeralda shook her head.

"Not for me! What I feel I must show, and sooner than I feel it, if that is possible. If I tried to bottle up my feelings it would make me ill, and the explosion would be all the greater when it did come. My only chance is to get it over as soon as possible, but in your case it is a long slow suspense, which is worse than any definite trouble. You are an angel, dear, to bear it as you do! It's mysterious that it should have come to you and not me, for you didn't need discipline, and I, who was always the naughty one, have got all that I want—Geoffrey, and home, and the dear little boy. You must come soon, Bridgie, to see the boy. He will be getting teeth and all sorts of luxuries, and his godmother ought to be there to look after him."

Esmeralda rose and strolled over to the glass to arrange her hat and pin on a filmy veil. "I must go downstairs now, and say good-bye to Miss Trevor. Don't hurry, dear, if you have anything to do. We don't leave for a quarter of an hour still."

Unsuspecting Bridgie trotted away to the kitchen to give some orders, while Esmeralda sailed into the drawing-room, all smiles and amiability. A peal of laughter greeted her ears as she entered, and there sat Pixie perched on the end of the sofa, with her hands clasped round her knees, and her chin poked forward, enjoying to the full the discovery of a new audience, who was apparently as much interested in the sayings and doings of the O'Shaughnessy family as she was herself.

Both girls looked up as the rustle of silks heralded Mrs Hilliard's approach, but while the younger remained serenely composed, Sylvia's lips tightened, and her eyes gave out an ominous flash. It was as if she felt an antagonistic spirit in the air, and braced herself for the conflict. Yet nothing could have been more friendly than Esmeralda's smile—more cordial than her voice.

"I told Bridgie I must really have ten minutes for a farewell chat with you before I go. It has been so pleasant to have you here, and I hope we shall soon meet again. Has Pixie been amusing you while we were upstairs? Come down from that couch, child! You must be quite cramped. I am here, so you need not mount guard any longer."

"I'm very comfortable where I am," said Pixie easily. She laid her head on one side, and stared at her sister with large, innocent eyes, which seemed strangely disconcerting to that young lady's composure. She frowned, and snapped a bracelet together with quite a vicious snap.