"We haven't got any family now! How can you have a family without a father? He wouldn't have died if I had been at home. He was always cheerful when I was with him, and he said himself I was better than a doctor. Oh, Major, Major! Oh, Bridgie, Bridgie! Me heart's broken! Me heart's broken!" Pixie wept and wailed, and presently Miss Phipps stopped trying to console, and let her weep her fill, knowing well that the noisy grief is never the most lasting, and that when the first passion was exhausted she would be more ready for comfort. She had purposely delayed telling the sad news until tea was over, and presently it would be time for bed, when the sleep of childhood would drop its soothing curtain over grief. Pixie lay on the sofa, and cried until her face was swollen and she was too exhausted to cry any longer, and Miss Phipps was just about to propose a move to bed when, to her amazement, the child suddenly put her feet to the ground, sat up, and said faintly-- "I want to see the girls!" Well, after all, it was a natural request, for the bent of a lifetime does not change in moments of grief, and Pixie was a sociable little creature, who must needs have someone in whom to confide on every occasion. Miss Phipps realised as much, and also that companions of her own age would be better comforters than the teachers, between whom and the pupils there was naturally a great gulf fixed; so she assented at once, saying only-- "I will come for you in ten minutes. You must not stay downstairs longer than that," and Pixie feebly tottered across the hall to the room where the elder girls were sitting. She chose to join them rather than the pupils of her own age, for, as she had previously explained, she had been accustomed to "grown-ups" at home, and felt more interest in their society. The girls raised their heads with starts of surprise as she entered, and came slowly forward to seat herself in a chair. They stared at her with melancholy eyes, but there was a dead silence, for no one knew what to say or how to say it, so they sat in a row facing her, and Pixie blinked and trembled, and screwed her fingers together in a tight little knot. "I'm an orphan!" she said faintly, and five separate sobs of sympathy sounded as replies. "Poor little kid!" said Kate gruffly. "D-arling!" sobbed Flora.