think I
will say `Yes'! She shall come to you for a month on trial, Mrs
Wallace, and we can see how it works."

Mrs Wallace beamed with relief and satisfaction.

"That's very kind!" she said. "I am truly grateful. I realise that
your decision is unselfish, but believe me, you shall never regret it!"

And Bridgie remembered that prophecy, and smiled over it many times in
the happy years to come.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

JACK'S DISCOVERY.

Pixie received the intelligence that she was to begin her new duties on
the following Monday with the unruffled composure of one who has
expected no other decision. She asked eagerly what salary she was to
receive, and was a trifle depressed to find that it did not run to three
figures. Thirty pounds sounded very little, though she had only the
vaguest notion of its purchasing value, but her ambition had been to
supply the whole additional sum which was needed for the support of the
household.

Innocent Bridgie had no idea as to what might be expected under the
circumstances, but Miss Munns, who knew everything, declared that the
offer was a handsome one, and ten pounds in excess of the ordinary rate
of payment. Still, as she sagely remarked, one could never tell!
People sometimes seemed very generous and pleasant-spoken at first, and
then turned out everything that was exacting and unreasonable. Several
young friends of her own had gone out as governesses, and met with
tragic adventures. Marianne Summers, the cousin of Summers' Celebrated
Snowflake Soap, was with a family at Rochester, and nursed a little boy
all through scarlatina, and when she had toothache herself the lady said
it was most inconvenient because a dinner-party was coming. No
consideration whatever, and the food very poor. She was never so much
as asked to have a second helping!

"Maybe the lady had so many to help that she forgot to ask her.
Couldn't she ask herself? It would have been more friendly than
grumbling behind her back," said Pixie severely. "When I go out to
meals with people I make myself at home. I went to _dejeuner_ with some
friends in Paris, and I was so much at home that when they had cabbage,
I remarked that I wished it had been cauliflower. They smiled, and
looked quite pleasant!"

Miss Munns looked over her spectacles, and grunted to herself. She
considered Pixie O'Shaughnessy a most uncomfortable girl, and was never
at ease in her society. She asked embarrassing questi