"

The man, who was young in years and old in heart, looked down at the
girl with a very sad smile. She spoke as if it were such an easy thing
to do: he knew by bitter experience that under such circumstances as his
own it was of all tasks the most difficult. To stand aside during the
best years; to see the tide of life rush by, and have no part in the
great enterprise; and then to regain his powers when youth had passed,
and the keen savour of youth had died down into a dull indifference; to
be dependent for love on the careless affection of a lad,--how was it
possible for a man to keep his heart warm in such circumstances as
these?

"Life has been kind to you," he answered dryly, and Pixie flung him a
quick retort--

"I have been kind to _it_! If I'd chosen I might have found it hard
enough. We were always poor. I never remember a time when I hadn't to
pretend and make up, because it was impossible to get what I wanted.
Then I was sent to school, and I hated going, and my father died when I
was away, and they told me the news with not a soul belonging to me
anywhere near, and I loved my father _far_ more than other girls love
theirs! ... Then we left Knock. ... If _you'd_ lived in a castle, and
gone to a villa in a street, with a parlour in front and a dining-room
behind looking out on the kitchen wall, _you_ wouldn't talk about life
being kind--!

"I was in France for years being educated, and not able to repine
because it was a friend and she'd taken me cheaply. Perhaps you'd say
that was luck, and an advantage, and it _was_, but all the same it's
hard on a young thing to have to enjoy herself in a foreign language,
and spend the holidays with a maiden lady and a snuffy old _Pere_,
because there wasn't enough money to come home. Yes," concluded Pixie,
with a smirk of satisfaction, "I've had my trials, and now I'm to be
crossed in love, and have my young lover rent from me. ... You couldn't
have the audacity to call life easy after that!"

Stephen tried valiantly to look sympathetic, but it was useless; he was
obliged to smile, and Pixie smiled with him, adding cheerily--

"Anyway, it's living! ... And I do love it when things happen. It's so
_dreadfully_ interesting to be alive."

The man who was old before his time looked down upon the girl with a
wistful glance. Small as she was, insignificant as she had appeared at
first sight, he had never seen any one more intensely, vitally alive.
Her tin