"Is it oil colours I am, or water? I'm flattered, ain't I, as a portrait ought to be? Ye couldn't imagine I could be so neat!" cried Pixie tauntingly, as she pirouetted to and fro on the top of the table, to which she had lightly sprung at the first moment of discovery. She looked like a big French doll, as she swung from side to side, her hands outheld, her shoulders raised, her tiny feet twinkling to and fro. Her pink frock was marvellously smart, the flounces stood out in jaunty fashion around the ankles, the sash encircled a tiny waist, and the brothers and sisters stood looking on, joy, incredulity, amaze written upon their faces. Bridgie's arms kept stretching out and falling back to her side with automatic regularity, and still the little figure pranced, and gesticulated, and blew kisses to right and left, at one moment a merry Irish vagabond, at the next a French marionette--all smirks and bows and shrugging shoulders. "We got the better of you that time, I'm thinking! Oh, la-la! how it was droll to hear you all making your pleasantries upon me while I kept still--so still! I have never been so still but when I am up to mischief. If ye could have seen under the table, I was shaking like a jelly, but Esmeralda said, `I'll pack ye back as quick as ye came if you spoil it on me, after all me trouble!'" "Figure it to yourselves; I was sitting so _triste_ by myself in the _salon_, thinking of you all at home, and the fun ye'd have without me, and the slices of plum-pudding fried up the next day the way I like them best, and never a bite to come my way, when behold I the door opened, and there enters to me Marie, all smiles and complaisance. Everything is altered, she bears a letter from Madame Hilliard--I must pack my box, and say my farewells, and be ready to start by the train next day. Fortunately all is ready. Therese has already prepared for my return. There was nothing to do but lay the things in the box and drive away." "And what did Therese say to it all? How did she and Pere like parting from you in such a hurry?" "They wept!" said Pixie tragically. Her shoulders approached her ears in eloquent gesture. "But how they wept! I also wept to see them weep, and Marie wept to leave her dear Paris." She paused, and the solemn expression gave place to a broad smile of enjoyment. "There wasn't a dry rag between the four of us, and Pere took snuff to console himself, and that started him crying harder than ever. I was so flurried I couldn't tell which was the topmost, joy or sorrow, until we had ham and eggs for breakfast this morning, and I felt I was at home. It's an awful thing to live in a country where there's never a bite of solid food to cheer your spirits in the morning! Many's the time me heart would bleed, thinking of Miles if he'd been there. Are ye glad to see me, boys, now you know that I'm real?"