at fact,
though his easy-going Irish nature found nothing to worry about in the
fact that the money was legally his wife's, and not his own.

Both Esmeralda as a society queen, and Sylvia as chatelaine of Knock,
had opportunities of showing life to a young girl, with which Bridgie in
her modest little home in a provincial town could not compete.
Nevertheless, the heart of the tender elder sister was loath to part
from her charge at the very moment when watchfulness and guidance were
most important. She fought against the idea; assured herself that there
was time, plenty of time. What, after all, was twenty-one? In two,
three years one might talk about society; in the meantime let the child
be! And Captain Victor, in his turn, looked into the future, and saw
his Bridgie left sisterless in this strange town, bereft all day long of
the society of the sweetest and most understanding of companions, and
he, too, sighed, and asked himself what was the hurry. Surely another
year, a couple of years! And then, being _one_ in reality as well as in
name, the eyes of husband and wife met and lingered, and, as if at the
sweep of an angel's wing, the selfish thoughts fell away, and they faced
their duty and accepted it once for all.

Bridgie leaned her head on her husband's shoulder and sighed thankfully.

"I have you, Dick, and the children! 'Twould be wicked to complain."

And Dick murmured gruffly--

"I want no one but you," and held her tightly in his arms, while Bridgie
sniffed, and whimpered, like one of her own small children.

"But if P-ixie--_if_ Pixie is unhappy--if any wretched man breaks
Pixie's heart--"

"He couldn't!" Dick Victor said firmly. "No man could. That's beyond
them. Heart's like Pixie's don't break, Honey! I don't say they, may
not ache at times, but breaking is a different matter. Your bantling is
grown-up: you can keep her no longer beneath your wing. She must go out
into the world, and work and suffer like the rest, but she'll win
through. Pixie the woman will be a finer creature than Pixie the
child!"

But Bridgie hid her face, and the tears rushed into her eyes, for hers
was the mother's heart which longed ever to succour and protect, and
Pixie was the child whom a dying father had committed to her care. It
was hard to let Pixie go.

CHAPTER FOUR.

THE INVITATION.

The immediate consequence of the Pixie pronouncement was a
correspondence between her two elder sisters, whe