There was no disguising the fact that she was an extraordinarily plain child, and as the years passed by she grew ever plainer and plainer, and showed less possibility of improvement. The same contrariety of fate which made Bridget look like Patricia, made Patricia look like Bridget, and Mrs O'Shaughnessy often thought regretfully of her broken principle. "Indeed it's a judgment on me!" she would cry; but always as she said the words she hugged her baby to her breast, and showered kisses on the dear, ugly little face, wondering in her heart if she had ever loved a child so much before, or if any of Pixie's beautiful sisters and brothers had had such strange, fascinating little ways. At the age when most infants are content to blink, she smiled accurately and with intent; when three months old she would look up from her pillow with a twinkling glance, as who would say, "Such an adventure as I've had with these cot curtains! You wait a few months until I can speak, and I'll astonish you about it!" And when she could sit up she virtually governed the nursery. The shrewdness of the glance which she cast upon her sisters quite disturbed the enjoyment of those young ladies in the pursuance of such innocent tricks as making lakes of ink in the laps of their clean pinafores, or scratching their initials on newly painted doors, and she waved her rattle at them with such an imperious air that they meekly bowed their heads, and allowed her to tug at their curls without reproach. The whole family vied with each other in adoring the ugly duckling, and in happy Irish fashion regarded her shortcomings as a joke rather than a misfortune. "Seen that youngster of mine?" the Major would cry genially to his friends. "She's worth a visit, I tell you! Ugliest child in Galway, though I say it that shouldn't." And Pixie's company tricks were all based on the subject of personal shortcomings. "Show the lady where your nose ought to be, darling," her mother would say fondly, and the baby fingers would point solemnly to the flat space between the eyes. "And where's the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky, sweetheart?" would be the next question, when the whole of Pixie's fat fist would disappear bodily inside the capacious mouth. "The Major takes more notice of her than he did of any of the others," Mrs O'Shaughnessy would tell her visitor. "He is always buying her presents!"