urb yourself?
What put it in your head to answer an advertisement at all?"

"Because I didn't want to be a burden to ye, my dear, after all the
money you've spent on me education!"

"A little midget like you to speak of being a burden! No one would
guess you were there if you weren't so upsetting! It's no use fifty
Mrs Wallaces coming to see me. Some other French lady will have to
amuse her children. This one is wanted at home!"

Pixie smiled composedly, and squeezed the clinging hands.

"I knew you'd say `No' at the start. So did she. She was first cross,
and then she laughed, and said it would be a long, long time before I
was ready to teach. But she didn't really want teaching, only someone
to be funny in French, and when she heard me telling tales, and the
little girls both laughing, she began to think she would love to have
me. You remember the stories you used to tell me, Jack, about the
Spoopjacks and the Bobityshooties? I made up a new bit, and they simply
loved it. It's two hours every morning, and only ten minutes' walk, and
Therese says it's no use beginning to be proud till you've paid your
bills. You would like me to help you, wouldn't you, Jack?"

"Shades of Mrs Hilliard!" muttered Jack, and shrugged his shoulders
recklessly. "She will have a few volumes to write to me if I say `Yes!'
You are bound to help me, Piccaninny, whatever you are about, but I
can't bind myself to allow you to go out governessing before you are out
of short frocks. It is Saturday to-morrow, so I shall be home in the
afternoon, and see this Mrs Wallace for myself. It's a bad scheme on
the face of it, but it's just possible it may be more feasible than it
sounds."

That was all the length which he would go for the moment, and Pixie was
content to drop the subject, secure in her conviction that time and Mrs
Wallace would win the victory. She was petted and fussed over to her
heart's content for the rest of the evening, and the story of her
various efforts to retrieve the family fortunes was heard with
breathless attention. She wondered why the listening faces wore such
tender, pitiful expressions, why lazy Pat flushed, and Bridgie went over
to her desk and spent a whole half-hour sorting out her bills. It never
occurred to her that her earnest effort to take her own share of
responsibility was a more eloquent stimulus than twenty lectures!

Next afternoon at three o'clock the two sisters and Sylvia Trevor
stat