and admired wherever she has gone, she has
vept--_vept_, I tell you, to say _adieu_ to her beloved Mademoiselle!
And she has given her a chain for her neck, and Madame la Marquise that
beautiful 'ansome botelle. Really, Pixie, you are behind the times if
you don't know about Isoult. Just turn Mademoiselle on to her next time
you are with her on the walk, and you won't have to exert yourself any
more. She will sing her praises until you come in."

"I will," said Pixie sturdily. "And I'll see that bottle, too. I must
see that bottle. I'll go into Mademoiselle's room next time I have a
chance, and have a good look at it all to myself!"

The girls smiled, but took little note of a determination which seemed
natural enough under the circumstances. A week afterwards they
remembered it with very different feelings, and Pixie's own words were
brought up in judgment against her.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

PIXIE IN TROUBLE.

It was already dark when the crocodile passed in at the gates of Holly
House on its return from the expedition to town, and Miss Phipps gave
instructions that the girls were to go straight to their rooms to dress
for the evening. Full dress was the rule for the evenings of term-
holiday, for even if nothing particular was going on, and no extra
guests expected, it gave one a gala feeling to don a light frock, and
gaze down upon one's very best shoes and stockings. Before leaving for
town in the morning, visits had been paid to the box-room to take the
rarely-used splendours from their wrappings, and now they lay stretched
out in all their glory on the narrow beds, white, blue, and pink, a very
wealth of colour and luxury.

Pixie O'Shaughnessy, having no adornment to do for herself, acted as
lady's-maid to her bedroom, with much satisfaction to her mistresses,
and credit to herself. She brushed Kate's hair until it was so smooth
and flat as to be almost invisible from a front view; she tied Ethel's
sash, and the ribbon to match which confined the ends of her curls; and
she fastened Flora's dress, which was a matter of difficulty and time,
for though it was let out regularly each holiday-time, it invariably
grew too tight before it was needed again.

"I can't help it," the poor thing protested miserably. "I don't eat
half as much as Ethel, and she's as thin as a stick. It's my fate! I
was born fat, and I go on growing fatter and fatter all the time. I
shall be a fat woman in a show, before I am