"That's over!" she said to herself with a sigh of relief, glad as ever, to be done with painful things and able to look forward to the good to come. "She thinks she's miserable, the darling, but she'll be as happy as a grig the moment she gets back to Dick and the children. That's the worst of living with married sisters! They can manage so well without you. I'd prefer some one who was frantic if I turned my back--" She smiled at the thought, and met an ingratiating smile upon the face of her travelling companion. The companion was stout and elderly, handsomely dressed, and evidently of a sociable disposition. It was the height of her ambition on a railway journey to meet another woman to whom she could shout confidences for hours upon end, but it was rarely that her sentiments were returned. Fate had been kind to her to-day in placing Pixie O'Shaughnessy in the same carriage. "The young lady seemed quite distressed to leave you. Is she your sister?" "She is. Do you think we are alike?" "I--I wouldn't go so far as to say _alike_!" the large lady said blandly; "but there's a _look_! As I always say, there's no knowing where you are with a family likeness. My eldest girl--May--takes after her father; Felicia, the youngest, is the image of myself; yet they've been mistaken for each other times and again. It's a turn of the chin.--Is she married?" "Who? Bridgie--my sister? Oh yes--very much. Six years." "Dear me! She looks so young! My May is twenty-seven. She has had her chances, of course. Any children?" "Wh--" Pixie's mind again struggled after the connection. "Oh, two--a boy and a girl. They are called," she added, with a benevolent consciousness of sparing further effort, "Patrick and Patricia." "Irish, evidently," the large lady decided shrewdly. "Rather awkward, isn't it, about pet names, and laundry marks, and so forth? However. ... And so you've been paying her a visit, I suppose, and are returning to your home?" "One of my homes," corrected Pixie happily. "I have three. Two sisters and one brother. And they all like to have me. My parents are dead." Her tone showed that the loss referred to was of many years' standing; nevertheless, the stout lady hurriedly changed the conversation, as though fearful of painful reminiscences. "I have been having a morning's shopping. We live _quite_ in the country, and I come to town every time I need a new gown. I have been arranging for one this morning, for a wedding. So difficult, when one has no ideas! I chose purple." Pixie cocked her head on one side and thoughtfully pursed her lips. "Very nice! Yes, purple's so--_portly_!" She surprised a puckering of the large lady's face, and hastened to supplement the description. "Portly, and--er--regal, and _duchessy_, don't you think? I met a duchess once--she was rather like you--and _she_ wore purple!" The large lady expanded in a genial warmth. Her lips opened in a breathless question--