fect as in some others, the meals might vary in
excellence, but that was a secondary affair. "If a bad temper is a
necessary accompaniment of a good cook, then--give me herbs!" she would
cry, shrugging her pretty shoulders, and her husband agreed--with
reservations!

He was a very happy, a very contented man, and every day of his life he
thanked God afresh for his happy home, for his children, for the
greatest treasure of all, sweet Bridget, his wife!

To-day, however, the disclosure had nothing to do with domestic
revolutions, and Bridgie's tone in making her announcement held an
unusual note of tragedy.

"Dick, guess what! You'll never guess! Pixie's grown-up!"

For a moment Captain Victor looked as was expected of him--utterly
bewildered. He lay back in his chair, his handsome face blank and
expressionless, the while he stared steadily at his wife, and Bridgie
stared back, her distress palpably mingled with complacence. Speak she
would not, until Dick had given expression to his surprise. She sat
still, therefore, shaking her head in a melancholy mandarin fashion,
which had the undesired effect of restoring his complacence.

"My darling, what unnecessary woe! It's astounding, I grant you; one
never expected such a feat of Pixie; but the years _will_ pass--there's
no holding them, unfortunately. How old is she, by the way? Seventeen,
I suppose--eighteen?"

"_Twenty_--nearly twenty-one!"

Bridgie's tone was tragic, and Dick Victor in his turn looked startled
and grave. He frowned, bit his lip, and stared thoughtfully across the
room.

"Twenty-one? Is it possible? Grown-up, indeed! Bridgie, we should
have realised this before. We have been so content with things as they
were that we've been selfishly blind. If Pixie is over twenty we have
not been treating her fairly. We have treated her too much as a child.
We ought to have entertained for her, taken her about."

Bridgie sighed, and dropped her eyelids to hide the twinkle in her eyes.
Like most husbands Dick preferred a quiet domestic evening at the end
of a day abroad: like most wives Bridgie would have enjoyed a little
diversion at the end of a day at home. Sweetly and silently for nearly
half a dozen years she had subdued her preferences to his, feeling it at
once her pleasure and her duty to do so, but now, if duty suddenly
assumed the guise of a gayer, more sociable life, then most cheerfully
would Irish Bridgie accept the change.

"I