k! Make a start--any start--and I'll go on. ... It's your
place to begin."

"Er--er--" stammered Stanor, and promptly forgot every subject of
conversation under the sun. He stared back into the girl's face, met
her honest eyes, and was seized with an impulse of confession. "Before
I say anything else, I--I ought to apologise, Miss O'Shaughnessy. I'm
most abominably ashamed. I'm afraid you overheard my--er--er--w-what I
said to Miss Ward at tea--"

"Of course I heard," said Pixie, staring. "What could you expect? Not
four yards away, and a great bass voice! I'm not _deaf_. But there's
no need to feel sorry. I thought you put it very nicely, myself!"

"Nicely!" He stared in amaze. "_Nicely_! How could you possibly--"

"You said I had given Esmeralda my share. I'd never once looked at it
in that way; neither had any one else. And it's _so soothing_. It
gives me a sort of credit, don't you see, as well as a pride."

She was speaking honestly, transparently honestly; it was impossible to
doubt that, with her clear eyes beaming upon him, her lips curling back
in laughter from her small white teeth. There was not one sign of
rancour, of offence, of natural girlish vanity suffering beneath a blow.

"Good sport!" cried Stanor, in a voice, however, which could be heard by
no one but himself. His embarrassment fell from him, but not his
amazement; _that_ seemed to increase with each moment that passed. His
glance lingered on Pixie's face, the while he said incredulously--

"It's--it's wonderful of you. I've known heaps of girls, but never one
who would have taken it like that. You don't seem to have a scrap of
conceit--"

"Ex-cuse me," corrected Miss O'Shaughnessy. For the first time she
seemed to be slightly ruffled, as though the supposition that she could
be bereft of any quality, or experience common to her kind was
distinctly hurtful to her pride. "I _have_! Heaps! But it's for the
right things. I've too much conceit to be conceited about things about
which I've no _right_ to be conceited. I'm only conceited about things
about which I'm--"

"Conceited enough to know are worth being jolly well conceited about,"
concluded Stanor, and they laughed together in merry understanding.

"That's it," agreed Pixie, nodding. "I used to be conceited about being
plain, because it was so unusual in our family that it was considered
quite distinguished, and my father used to boast at the hunt that he ha