y his own
master."

"I'm sure it is. And when there was work you were quite right to stay
on. It would have been wrong to have left it unfinished."

Stanor, looked up sharply, met clear, honest eyes, which looked back
into his without a trace of sarcasm. She _meant_ it! Voice and look
alike were transparently genuine. At that moment she was essentially
the Pixie of old, the Pixie to whom it came naturally to believe the
best. The flush on Stanor's cheeks deepened as he realised the nature
of the "work" which had made his excuse. His voice deepened with the
first real note of intimacy.

"That's like you, Pixie! You always understood. ... And now tell me
about yourself. What's happened to you since I heard last? Six months
ago, was it? No! barely four. Didn't you write for Christmas? Been
jogging along as usual at home, playing games with the babies?"

"Yes; just jogging," said Pixie. Then of a sudden her eyes flashed.
"`Over here' we don't find the `best of life' in a _rush_! It comes to
some of us quite satisfactorily in a jog! `I guess,' as you say, that
my life as been as much `worth while' as if I'd spent it in a round of
pink luncheons and green teas, as your American friends seem to do."

The unexpected happened, and, instead of protesting, Stanor sighed, and
looked of a sudden grave and depressed.

"You're right there, Pixie; that's so, if you are built the right way!
But some of us--" He checked himself, and began afresh in a voice of
enforced enthusiasm. "Well!--and then you came up here to nurse your
brother, and found the Runkle already in possession. I _was_ surprised
to read about that in your letter at Liverpool. Odd, isn't it, how
things come about? And how _is_ the old fellow?"

Again Pixie's eyes sent out a flash. How was it that every fresh thing
that Stanor said seemed to hurt her in a new place?

"Considering his great years and infirmities, the old fellow seems
surprisingly well."

"Halloo, what's this?" Stanor stared in surprise. "Said the wrong
thing, have I? What have I said? He seems old, you know, if he isn't
actually so in years. I used to look upon him as a patriarch. Not so
much his looks as his character. Such a sombre old beggar!"

"He wasn't sombre with _us_!"

Memory flashed back pictures of Stephen's face as he sat in the
arm-chair by the fire, listening to those impromptu concerts which had
enlivened Pat's convalescence. Pixie saw him as he lea