The shoulders went up again, and a roguish smile lit up the little face. Bridgie watched it with rapt, adoring eyes; her Pixie, her baby, was now a big girl, almost grown-up, transformed from the forlorn-looking elf to a natty little personage, more like the pictures of _jeunes filles_ on the back of French pattern plates than she could have believed possible for Irish flesh and blood. Imitative Pixie had caught "the air," and the good Therese had evidently taken immense pains with the costume in which her pupil should make her reappearance in the family circle. Bridgie gazed at the buckled, high-heeled shoes peeping from beneath the flounces, and wondered if it could really be that they held the same little feet which used to patter about, buttonless, and down at heel; she looked at the jaunty, outstanding bow which tied back the hair, and contrasted it with the wisp of ribbon twisted to the proportions of a tape, and knotted like a cat-o'-nine-tails, which used to bind together the straggly locks, and as she looked, she felt--shall it be confessed?--a pang of longing and regret for the days that were no more. It passed in a moment, for whatever her external appearance might be, Pixie was transparently the same at heart, and quick to note the faintest shadow on the face of the dear mother-sister. She swung round to face Bridgie, the grey eyes bent upon her in earnest scrutiny. They saw something written there that had not been visible two years before--the outward marks of an inward, and very bitter struggle, and Bridgie flushed beneath the scrutiny of that clear-seeing, childlike gaze, and trembled at the thought of what was to come. "Has anyone been unkind to ye, Bridgie?" asked Pixie in deep, full- throated tones. She put up her hand and stroked the soft cheek with a tenderness of pitying love which was more eloquent than words. "There are dips in your cheeks, like Miss Minnitt's when she was getting over the fever, and your eyes look tired. What has happened to worry ye, me dear, and take the colour out of your face?" "She has enough colour to satisfy you at the moment, hasn't she?" Jack said, laughing, and Pixie nodded with ruthless candour. "Because she is blushing. What are you blushing for, you silly girl? It isn't as if I had asked about a heart affair. The girls in France were always talking of heart affairs, and asking if you were _fiancee_. They thought you were very old, and must be going to _coif_ Saint Catherine. That means that you are going to be an old maid. I said yes, of course you were, because you were needed at home. Esmeralda was no use, but we could not get on without Bridgie!" "You miserable, ungrateful child! This is my reward for all I have done for you!" declaimed Esmeralda with dramatic emphasis, but Bridgie's face lit up with a smile of whole-hearted satisfaction.