d, and, beginning at the topmost
ribbon on Pixie's hat, stared steadily downward to the tip of the little
patent-leather shoe, evidently expecting to find points of unusual
interest in the costume of a girl whose sister entertained a duchess in
her town house. The train had rattled through a small hamlet and come
out again into the open before she spoke again.

"Do you see many of them?"

"Which? What? Bonnets? Feathers? I don't think I quite--"

"Duchesses!" said the large lady deeply. And Pixie, who still preserved
her childish love of cutting a dash, fought with, and overcame an
unworthy temptation to invent several such titles on the spot.

"Not--many," she confessed humbly, "But, you see, I'm so young--I'm
hardly `out.' The sister with whom I've been living has not been able
to entertain. Where I'm going it is different. I expect to be very
gay."

The large lady nodded brightly.

"Quite right! Quite right! Only young once. Laugh while you may. I
like to see young things enjoying themselves. ... And then you'll be
getting engaged, and marrying."

"Oh, of course," assented Pixie, with an alacrity in such sharp contrast
with the protests with which the modern girl sees fit to meet such
prophecies, that the hearer was smitten not only with surprise but
anxiety. An expression of real motherly kindliness shone in her eyes as
she fixed them upon the girl's small, radiant face.

"I hope it will be `of course,' dear, and that you may be very, very
happy; but it's a serious question. I'm an old-fashioned body, who
believes in love. If it's the real thing it _lasts_, and it's about the
only thing upon which you can count. Health comes and goes, and riches
take wing. When I married Papa he was in tin-plates, and doing well,
but owing to American treaties (you wouldn't understand!) we had to put
down servants and move into a smaller house. Now, if I'd married him
for money, how should I have felt _then_?"

Pixie wagged her head with an air of the deepest dejection. She was
speculating as to the significance of tin-plates, but thought it tactful
not to inquire.

"I hope--" she breathed deeply--"I hope the tin-plates--" and her
companion gathered together her satchel and cloak in readiness for
departure at the next station, nodding a cheerful reassurance.

"Oh, yes; _quite_ prosperous again! Have been for years. But it only
shows. ... And Papa has attacks of gout. They are trying, my dear, to