loveliest grounds at Knock,
all the flowers coming up anyway, and volunteers drilling in the park,
and the glass-houses full of ferrets and white mice, and tomatoes, and
everything you can think of. If I could make some money we should be
able to go back sooner than we thought, and Bridgie would be so pleased.
When shall I say you are coming to see her?"

"I have not promised to come at all. You must not leap at conclusions.
It is a most ridiculous scheme, but really--"

Mrs Wallace laughed in her turn, and going up to where her husband
stood, exchanged a few whispered confidences, some scattered words of
which reached the listener's ear. "Typically Irish! Preposterous! No
harm trying. What about Viva? So difficult to manage."

The discussion was still progressing when from above sounded a sudden
piercing cry, mounting ever higher and higher, the note sustained in
evident but determined effort. Footsteps raced across the floor,
followed by a bang as of some heavy wooden structure, a murmured
protest, and two distinct sets of shrieks, each warring against the
other.

Mr Wallace pressed his hands to his head, Mrs Wallace sighed, "Oh
dear, dear, dear!" in tones of hopeless distress, but Pixie cried
eagerly--

"Will I run upstairs and try what I can do? Will I make them stop, and
laugh instead?"

"You'd deserve the Victoria Cross!" the father declared, while the
mother hurried to the door, and led the way with rapid footsteps.

"They have been brought up by an Indian ayah, and this English nurse
doesn't understand them a bit. They _have_ trying tempers, there is no
use denying it, but they are dear little creatures _if_ rightly managed.
Oh dear, dear, dear! these dreadful shrieks! They go through my head."

"Let me go in alone. They will listen better if they don't see you,"
said Pixie, and walked undauntedly on to the field of battle. In this
instance it was represented by a remarkably handsome and well-filled
nursery, and the belligerents took the form of two little girls of four
and five, who were seated on the floor, dry-eyed, but crimson-faced from
the effort to sustain their shrieks. A box of bricks lay scattered by
the window, and an anaemic nurse leant against the wall in an attitude
of despair.

Pixie walked forward, seated herself on the floor immediately in front
of the children, and gazed at them with benign curiosity. There was no
anger in her face, no warning of punishment to come, h