then, and I'm glad to find
your foreign experiences have not affected your candour. There's
another thing that is not much altered, so far as I can hear--and that's
your brogue, my dear! It sounds to me almost as pronounced as in the
old days when you were running wild at Knock."

"But it's got a French accent to it now--that's better than English!"
cried Pixie eagerly. "I was learning to speak quite elegantly in
Surbiton, but Therese wouldn't listen to a word of English out of my
mouth, and if you'll believe me, me dears, my very dreams are in French
the last few months. There was a _jeune fille_ in Paris who used to
promenade with us sometimes for the benefit of hearing me talk English.
She said the words didn't sound the same way as when they taught them to
her at school. _Helas le miserable_! The brogue of her put shame on me
own before I came away."

The shoulders went up again, and a roguish smile lit up the little face.
Bridgie watched it with rapt, adoring eyes; her Pixie, her baby, was
now a big girl, almost grown-up, transformed from the forlorn-looking
elf to a natty little personage, more like the pictures of _jeunes
filles_ on the back of French pattern plates than she could have
believed possible for Irish flesh and blood. Imitative Pixie had caught
"the air," and the good Therese had evidently taken immense pains with
the costume in which her pupil should make her reappearance in the
family circle.

Bridgie gazed at the buckled, high-heeled shoes peeping from beneath the
flounces, and wondered if it could really be that they held the same
little feet which used to patter about, buttonless, and down at heel;
she looked at the jaunty, outstanding bow which tied back the hair, and
contrasted it with the wisp of ribbon twisted to the proportions of a
tape, and knotted like a cat-o'-nine-tails, which used to bind together
the straggly locks, and as she looked, she felt--shall it be
confessed?--a pang of longing and regret for the days that were no more.
It passed in a moment, for whatever her external appearance might be,
Pixie was transparently the same at heart, and quick to note the
faintest shadow on the face of the dear mother-sister. She swung round
to face Bridgie, the grey eyes bent upon her in earnest scrutiny.

They saw something written there that had not been visible two years
before--the outward marks of an inward, and very bitter struggle, and
Bridgie flushed beneath the scrutiny of t