“Shades of Mrs Hilliard!” muttered Jack, and shrugged his shoulders recklessly. “She will have a few volumes to write to me if I say ‘Yes!’ You are bound to help me, Piccaninny, whatever you are about, but I can’t bind myself to allow you to go out governessing before you are out of short frocks. It is Saturday to-morrow, so I shall be home in the afternoon, and see this Mrs Wallace for myself. It’s a bad scheme on the face of it, but it’s just possible it may be more feasible than it sounds.”
That was all the length which he would go for the moment, and Pixie was content to drop the subject, secure in her conviction that time and Mrs Wallace would win the victory. She was petted and fussed over to her heart’s content for the rest of the evening, and the story of her various efforts to retrieve the family fortunes was heard with breathless attention. She wondered why the listening faces wore such tender, pitiful expressions, why lazy Pat flushed, and Bridgie went over to her desk and spent a whole half-hour sorting out her bills. It never occurred to her that her earnest effort to take her own share of responsibility was a more eloquent stimulus than twenty lectures!
Next afternoon at three o’clock the two sisters and Sylvia Trevor stationed themselves in positions of vantage behind the curtains, and looked out eagerly for the advent of Mrs Wallace. Bridgie could not divest herself of a suspicion that the promise might have been given as the easiest way out of a difficulty, but before the half-hour struck a well-appointed carriage turned the corner of the road, the coachman glanced at the number on the door, and drew up his horses, when a fluffy head peered out of the window, and Pixie cried excitedly—
“That’s the thin one! That’s Viva! I expect she howled, and they could not keep her away. That’s Mrs Wallace! Isn’t it an elegant hat?”
Bridgie peeped and grew quite pink with excitement, for, truth to tell, mother and daughter made a charming picture as they came up the little path. Mrs Wallace looked almost like a girl herself in her becoming hat and veil, while the golden-haired child wore a white coat and cap edged with fluffy swan’s-down. Sylvia retreated to the dining-room.
Pixie ran to meet the visitors at the door, and the voice that exclaimed, “Bon jour, Mamzelle Paddy!” was in itself an augury of friendship. The next moment they were in the drawing-room, and Mrs Wallace was smilingly explaining the title.
“I am sure you must have been very much surprised to hear of yesterday’s interview, Miss O’Shaughnessy! ‘mamzelle Paddy,’ as my husband has named your small sister, has made quite a conquest of my little girls, and Viva refused to be left behind when she heard where I was going. I hope you were not very anxious about her absence yesterday?”
“Indeed I was not, for I took it for granted she was with some friends near by. Please sit down, and get warm. ’Twas a ridiculous idea of the child’s to suppose for one moment that she could fulfil your requirements; but she’s the baby of the family, and has never been thwarted, and such a kind little creature that she must try to help if there is any difficulty. It is good of you to take the trouble to come and explain, but indeed we have decided already that it is quite, quite impossible!”
Mrs Wallace gave a start of consternation, and the smile faded from her lips. She looked first at Bridgie, then across the room to where Viva stood on tiptoe dragging at Pixie’s sleeve, and reiterating, “Mamzelle! Mamzelle Paddy, will you come again to my nursery? Will you tell me more stories about those peoples in the lamp-posts?”
“Oh, don’t say it is impossible!” she said softly. “I want her to help me too, and I am so troubled about my children. Could she—could they both go into another room for a few minutes, while we talk it over together?”