“I’d like to fix a picnic your way some time, Pat-ricia! It would be a heap more fun. It must be fine to be a large family and make believe together. It’s a problem for an only child to make mischief all by itself. ... Did you have real good times in that old castle with the funny name?”
“We did!” affirmed Pixie eloquently. “There were so many of us, and so little to go round, that we were kept busy contriving and scheming the whole time, and, when that failed, falling back on imagination to fill in the gaps. It’s more comfortable to be rich, but it’s not half so exciting. When you have very few things, and wait an age for them, it’s thrilling beyond words when they do arrive. When Bridgie re-covered the cushions in the drawing-room we all came to call in a string, and sat about on chairs, discussing the weather and studying the colour effects from different angles. Then we turned on the light and pretended to be a party. I suppose Esmeralda never notices a cushion!”
Pixie sighed, and Honor stared, and Robert Carr looked from one to the other, his thin lips twitching in sarcastic fashion.
Chapter Eight.
A Long, Long Letter.
From Pixie O’Shaughnessy to Bridgie Victor:
“Not a moment have I had to write to you, Honey, since the first wee note, and I’ve been here a whole three days. It’s the most distracting thing in the world when you’ve nothing to do, and takes up more time than you’d believe. I think of you all in the morning in the dear little house, every one bustling round, and only longing for more hands and legs to get along the quicker, while here we sit, the six of us, dawdling over breakfast, with not a thing to think of but how to waste the time until we can decently begin to eat again! It isn’t energetic, and it isn’t useful, and it isn’t wise, or noble, or improving, or anything of the kind, but I won’t disguise from you, my dear, that, by way of a change, it’s exceedingly agreeable to the feelings.
“In Esmeralda’s language, there is no one here at present, which means that there are three other visitors besides my important self, and, what is more, my dear, there’s a full-fledged romance being acted under my very eyes. Here’s luck! Aren’t things kind to happen so conveniently for me?