Like the shiver of wind among the trees, the word “Expelled!” came from a dozen quivering lips, and Pixie O’Shaughnessy clasped her hands in horrified appeal.
“Oh, ye wouldn’t—ye wouldn’t send her away! Ye wouldn’t give her over to her father, and him so stern and cruel with her! If she’s been bad now, she was good before. The girls were fond of her, and she was kind to meself, lending me her lace collar and all the fixings for the party. If it’s for making me miserable you are after punishing her, I’ll be more miserable than ever, and the girls will be miserable too—ask them if they won’t! Lots of them think there isn’t another to touch her in the school, and they couldn’t do that if she was all bad. Punish her some other way, but oh, don’t, don’t send her away! What’s the use of me taking all the trouble if it’s to be no good after all?”
A smile came to Miss Phipps’s lips at the innocent directness of the question, but she grew grave enough the next moment, and her voice sounded both sad and troubled as she replied—
“You certainly give us a lesson in the way to forgive our enemies, Pixie, and I should be sorry to do anything that would make you ‘miserable’; but I must think of Lottie’s good before our own preferences. Mr Vane is too good and just a man to treat her unkindly, and is only stern because he has realised the weakness of her character. He is too anxious about her welfare to make it right for me to conceal anything from him, especially so flagrant a breach of honour; but perhaps—I don’t know—if the feeling of the girls themselves is in her favour, I may consent to give her another chance. I am glad to hear that she has been kind—”
“Lottie is very good-natured, Miss Phipps. She is a favourite with the girls. They would be sorry to lose her. I think it would be a punishment to her to feel that she had fallen so much in their opinion, and we would all like to give her another chance,” said Margaret timidly, and Miss Phipps nodded kindly in reply.
“Ah, well, we can decide nothing to-night. It will need careful thinking over, and meanwhile we will banish the subject and make the most of the time that is left. I am very sorry for the interruption, although in one sense we are glad of it too, for it has brought Pixie back amongst us. She must go upstairs and dress quickly, and then we will have supper and put away unpleasant thoughts, and Mademoiselle must really dry her eyes, for I cannot have any more crying to-night.”
“If Peexie will forgeeve me!” cried Mademoiselle, stretching out her arms and clasping Pixie in so tight an embrace that when her little snub nose came again in sight, it bore the pattern of a steel button plainly stamped upon it. “I won’t forgeeve myself that I was so ’arsh and cross. It was a poor thanks, chérie, for your kindness to me all these weeks when I have been so warm and comfortable. I am ashamed to remember what I have done.”
“Small blame to you if you were mad when you believed I was telling a lie to your face! But ye weren’t half so nasty as ye think ye were,” said Pixie, beaming upon her in sweetest condescension. “Sometimes ye were quite agreeable. There was one day I was in with a cold, and ye came and cheered up me spirits until I hardly knew meself for the same creature.”
Mademoiselle lifted her hands with an eloquent gesture, as a sudden remembrance darted into her mind.
“Ah, yes! It is true. And now I have something else to tell you, you girls! It is Pixie whom you have to thank for this party, not me. It was she who begged me to supplicate Miss Phipps for you. She said, ‘She will say Yes if it is you who ask, but not to me, therefore you must not say my name at all; but if she will not give the party because I am to be punished, tell her to send me to bed and let the rest be ’appy.’ The dear child has thought of you when you were all so cross with her!”