"Twenty-one? Is it possible? Grown-up, indeed! Bridgie, we should have realised this before. We have been so content with things as they were that we've been selfishly blind. If Pixie is over twenty we have not been treating her fairly. We have treated her too much as a child. We ought to have entertained for her, taken her about." Bridgie sighed, and dropped her eyelids to hide the twinkle in her eyes. Like most husbands Dick preferred a quiet domestic evening at the end of a day abroad: like most wives Bridgie would have enjoyed a little diversion at the end of a day at home. Sweetly and silently for nearly half a dozen years she had subdued her preferences to his, feeling it at once her pleasure and her duty to do so, but now, if duty suddenly assumed the guise of a gayer, more sociable life, then most cheerfully would Irish Bridgie accept the change. "I think, dear," she said primly, "it _would_ be wise. Esmeralda has said so many a time, but I took no notice. I never did take any notice of Esmeralda, but she was right this time, it appears, and I was wrong. Imagine it! Pixie began bemoaning that she was not pretty, and it was not herself she was grieving for, or you, or _Me_!"--Bridgie's voice sounded a crescendo of amazement over that last pronoun--"but whom do you suppose? You'll never guess! Her future _lovers_!" It was just another instance of the provokingness of man that at this horrible disclosure Dick threw himself back in his chair in a peal of laughter; he laughed and laughed till the tears stood in his eyes, and Bridgie, despite herself, joined in the chorus. The juxtaposition of Pixie and lovers had proved just as startling to him as to his wife, but while she had been scandalised, he was frankly, whole-heartedly amused. "Pixie!" he cried. "Pixie with a lover! It would be about as easy to think of Patsie. Dear, quaint little Pixie! Who dares to say she isn't pretty? Her funny little nose, her big, generous mouth are a hundred times more charming than the ordinary pretty face. I'll tell you what it is, darling,"--he sobered suddenly;--"Pixie's lover, whoever he may be, will be an uncommonly lucky fellow!" Husband and wife sat in silence for some moments after this, hand in hand, as their custom was in hours of privacy, while the thoughts of each pursued the same subject--Pixie's opening life and their own duty towards it. On both minds was borne the unwilling realisation that their own home was not the ideal abode to afford the experience of life, the open intercourse with young people of her own age which it was desirable that the girl should now enjoy. As a means of adding to his income Captain Victor had accepted the position of adjutant to a volunteer corps in a northern city, and, as comparatively new residents, his list of acquaintances was but small.