“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, chérie!” 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!”
“I’m the youngest of six, and me father won’t have me thwarted!” sighed Pixie, lapsing into her brogue, as she usually did when agitated. “Nobody’s ever angry with me at Bally William; I get into mischief the day long, and it’s all quite happy and comfortable. If I’m quiet and well-behaved, Bridgie is after giving me a mixture, for, says she, ‘The choild’s ill; there’s not been a sound out of her this day!’ I wish I was back in me own country, Mademoiselle, and then I shouldn’t trouble you any more!”