ll it stupidity, if you asked my opinion," said Pixie calmly.
"You've stolen a poor creature's parcel, and perhaps she wanted to make
a poultice with it. It will be awful for her when she goes home, and
her husband groaning in agony, and nothing to relieve him but two lace
ties! I pity her when she finds it out."

"She has stolen my gloves. I'm not sorry for her at all, and if she is
an honest woman she will bring them back at once and hand them in to the
office. I shall take the wretched flannel there the moment we go
downstairs, but I've a conviction that I'll never see my parcel again.
I suppose they got changed at one of those crowded counters. I don't
think I care for sales very much, Pixie; they are too expensive. We
will go straight home after we have had tea."

"We will so, and make haste about it. I wanted specially to be back by
four o'clock."

To Bridgie's surprise, however, ten minutes before the omnibus reached
the corner at which they were wont to alight, Pixie beckoned to the
conductor to stop, and announced her intention of walking the rest of
the way. There was no time to discuss the point, and as she herself was
too tired to walk a step farther than she was obliged, she sat still and
watched the little figure affectionately until the omnibus rounded a
corner and it was hidden from sight.

She would have been astonished if she had seen the sudden energy with
which Pixie immediately turned right about face and walked away in the
opposite direction, taking a crumpled square of newspaper from her
pocket, and reading over a certain advertisement with eager attention.

"`Wanted a French lady.'--I'm not whole French, but I'm half. Haven't I
been in their country nearly two years? `To amuse two children.'--I'd
amuse a dozen, and never know I was doing it! `And perfect them in the
language for a couple of hours every morning.' Look at that, now, it's
better than the jetted lace! Two hours wouldn't interfere with me one
bit, for I've all the day to do nothing. `Apply personally between four
and six at Seven, Fitzjames Crescent.' Only ten minutes' walk from me
own door, as if it had been made on purpose to suit me! And quite a
good-looking house it is, with real silk curtains in the windows."

She tripped undauntedly up the steps and pressed the electric bell, and,
all unseen to her eyes, the little god of fate peered at her from behind
the fat white pillars of the portico, and clapped his li