The wretched scribe had not yet finished her conjugation, being about imperatively to command herself to be sorry that she had been rude to Mademoiselle, but she was too nervous to explain, and stood twisting her hands together and staring at the carpet, while Mademoiselle turned over the pages. She bit her lips once or twice as she read, and her eyes twinkled, but Pixie did not see that, and the voice which spoke sounded alarmingly stern. "It is ver' badly written. You make your letters too big; and such blots! I cannot 'ave such blots. What 'ave you been doing to make such blots as these?" "They are not blots, please, Mademoiselle; they are only--" "Only what then?" "Spots!" "Spots!" echoed Mademoiselle blankly. "Spots--blots! Blots--spots! I do not understand. What is then the difference between blots and spots?" "Blots is made with ink,"--when Pixie was agitated, as at the present moment, grammar was by no means her strong point--"and spots is made with--with--" "_Eh bien_! And with what, then?" "T-tears!" came the answer in the softest echo of a voice, and Mademoiselle looked down at the woe-begone face with startled eyes. "Tears! Your tears! But why should you cry? It is not so dreadful to write a verrrb. I might have given you worse punishment than that. Perhaps it was because you had missed the afternoon with your friends. I cannot think a girl of your age should cry over a simple verrrb." "I thought it was a very elaborate verb!" said Pixie faintly. "But it wasn't that that made me cry; it was hurting your feelings, Mademoiselle!" Mademoiselle leant back in her seat and looked intently at the shrinking figure. "Look up, _cherie_!" she said softly, and Pixie's fear fell from her like a mantle. She saw a hand outstretched, and clasped it eagerly. "I never meant to hang you, Mademoiselle! It was only a joke. The girls asked me to amuse them, and we think it fine sport to lasso one another at home. How was I to know it would be you, when I gave my word I would catch the first one that came upstairs? I didn't mean to be impertinent." "But, _ma petite_, you should not play such treecks at all!" Mademoiselle shook her head, but she was smiling as she spoke, for she was beginning to realise that no disrespect had been meant to herself, and that she had been unduly stern in her denunciations. "It is not the thing for a young lady at school; it is only for wild--how do you call them--`cowboys,' out on the prairie. If you do it at 'ome, it is not my affair, but if your father should see you some day, he must be shocked like me!"