iselle."

At intervals of every two or three minutes Mademoiselle glanced from her
work to the little figure at the other end of the room, but each time
Pixie's head was bent over her task, and the wandering eyes were glued
to their task. Such industry seemed so unnatural that the onlooker
became first puzzled and then uneasy, and at last resorted to coughing
and moving about in her chair in order to satisfy curiosity. In vain!
Pixie's head went down lower than ever, and the pen scratched away
without a moment's cessation, for she was enduring that unreasoning
panic of fear which sensitive children suffer when they are in disgrace
with their elders. She had been brought up in an atmosphere of tender
indulgence, had been the adored baby of the household, who had never
heard the sound of an angry voice, so that now, to sit alone in a room
with a person whom she had displeased, reduced her to a condition of
trembling fear. Her eyelids felt weighed down, a lump rose in her
throat, and she trembled as with cold, and then presently the dreaded
voice spoke again, and Mademoiselle said--

"Pixie, come here. Bring your verrrb!"

The wretched scribe had not yet finished her conjugation, being about
imperatively to command herself to be sorry that she had been rude to
Mademoiselle, but she was too nervous to explain, and stood twisting her
hands together and staring at the carpet, while Mademoiselle turned over
the pages. She bit her lips once or twice as she read, and her eyes
twinkled, but Pixie did not see that, and the voice which spoke sounded
alarmingly stern.

"It is ver' badly written. You make your letters too big; and such
blots! I cannot 'ave such blots. What 'ave you been doing to make such
blots as these?"

"They are not blots, please, Mademoiselle; they are only--"

"Only what then?"

"Spots!"

"Spots!" echoed Mademoiselle blankly. "Spots--blots! Blots--spots! I
do not understand. What is then the difference between blots and
spots?"

"Blots is made with ink,"--when Pixie was agitated, as at the present
moment, grammar was by no means her strong point--"and spots is made
with--with--"

"_Eh bien_! And with what, then?"

"T-tears!" came the answer in the softest echo of a voice, and
Mademoiselle looked down at the woe-begone face with startled eyes.

"Tears! Your tears! But why should you cry? It is not so dreadful to
write a verrrb. I might have given you worse punishment than that.