nd laying gentle fingers on the closed lids sealed them in
sleep, her kindliest gift.

Pixie slept, and round the corner of this straight green hedge fate came
marching towards her, with footsteps growing momentarily louder, and
louder upon the gravel path.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

A PROPOSAL OF MARRIAGE.

Stanor Vaughan stood with his hands thrust deep into his pockets looking
down upon Pixie's pale, unconscious face. He had motored thirty miles
to hear the latest news of the little patient--that was certainly _one_
reason of his visit; but a second had undoubtedly been to see once more
the little patient's aunt! At the house he had been informed that Miss
O'Shaughnessy was in the garden, and had tracked her without difficulty
to her favourite seat, and now there she lay, poor, sweet, tired little
soul! With her head tilted back against the hedge, and the wee mites of
hands crossed upon her lap--an image of weariness and dejection.

Stanor Vaughan felt within him the stirrings of tenderness and pity with
which a strong man regards weakness in any form. Pixie was by nature
such a jaunty little thing that it seemed doubly pathetic to see her so
reduced. A fellow wanted to take her up in his arms, and comfort her,
and make her smile again. A flush rose in Stanor's cheeks as he
recalled an incident of the night of the accident. After the hurried
return to the house, the three guests had sat alone, waiting in
miserable suspense for the doctor's verdict, but Pixie had disappeared.
No one knew where she had gone. Honor searched for her in vain, and at
last in an access of anxiety Stanor himself took up the quest. He found
her at last, perched on the wide window-seat of an upper window, but all
his persuasions could not move her from her post.

"Let me stay here!" she persisted. "It comforts me. I can see--I can
see the _lights_!"

"You mean the motor lamps as they come up the drive?"

"No," she said simply, "I mean the stars."

Stanor was as unimaginative as most men of his age, and his first
impression was that the poor little thing was off her head. He crept
downstairs and rang for a basin of the good warm soup with which he and
his companions had been provided an hour before. When it was brought he
carried the tray carefully up three long flights of stairs, and besought
of Pixie to drink it forthwith.

She shook her head, and all his persuasions could not rouse her to the
exertion; but being an obst