Chapter Thirteen.
Explanations.
“Pixie, awake! awake! Oh, Pixie, open your eyes! Get up, dear, get up! We want you downstairs!”
Margaret bent over Pixie’s bedside, tears shining in her eyes, and lifting the slight figure in her arms, shook it to and fro, until the grey eyes opened in astonishment, and a sleepy voice murmured—
“Is’t morning? Time get up?”
“Morning, no! It is not nine o’clock, and Miss Phipps thought you would certainly be awake, with so much music going on; but it’s no use, I must wake you, whatever happens! Here’s your dressing-gown. Here are your bedroom slippers. You have to come downstairs with me this minute!”
“Am I the queen?” asked Pixie, waking up all in a moment, and peering mischievously into Margaret’s face. “When you are wakened up in the middle of the night, and taken downstairs in your dressing-gown and slippers, it’s either a fire, or you are the queen, and the courtiers are waiting to kiss your hand. You know it is, Margaret! You have seen it in the pictures!”
“Yes, I’ve seen it? and perhaps there may be courtiers waiting for you, Pixie; and kisses too, and a dear little crown to put on that shaggy head! Great excitements have happened since you went to bed, and we know now that it was not you who broke Mademoiselle’s scent-bottle. We are almost certain that it was Lottie herself, and Miss Phipps has sent for you to help us!”