Pixie OShaughnessy | Page 3

a boy who had had especial claims on her care and guidance; Joan, beautiful and daring, ignorant of nothing so much as of her own ignorance; Pat, of the pensive face and reckless spirit; and last but not least, Pixie, her baby--dear, naughty, loyal little Pixie, whom she must leave to the tender mercies of children little older than herself! The dim eyes brightened, the thin hand stretched out and gripped her husband by the arm.
"Jack!" she cried shrilly--"Pixie! Give Pixie a chance! Take care of her--she is so young--and I can't stay. For my sake, Jack, give Pixie a chance!"
The Major promised with sobs and tears. In his own selfish way he had adored his wife, and her last words could not easily be put aside. As the months passed by, he was the more inclined to follow her wishes, as the few thousands which fell to him at her death enabled him to pay off his more pressing debts and enjoy a temporary feeling of affluence. Jack went back to his office in London, where he had betaken himself three years before, to the disgust of the father, who considered it more respectable for an O'Shaughnessy to be in debt than to work for his living in the City among City men. Pat and Miles remained at home, ostensibly to help on the estate, and in reality to shoot rabbits and get into mischief with the farm hands. Miss Minnitt was discharged, since Bridgie must now be occupied with household duties, and Joan was satisfied that her education was finished. And the verdict went forth that Pixie was to go to school.
"Your mother was always grieving that she could not educate your sisters like other girls, and it was her wish that you should have a chance. I'll send you to London to the best school that can be found, if I have to sell the coat off my back to do it," said the Major fervently; for there was no sacrifice which he was not ready to make--in anticipation, and he hoped to discover a school which did not demand payments in advance. He patted the child on the shoulder in congratulation; but Pixie was horrified, and, opening her mouth, burst into howls and yells of indignation.
"I won't! I shan't! I hate school! I won't go a step! I'll stay at home and have Miss Minnitt to teach me! I won't! I won't! I won't!"
The Major smiled and stroked his moustache. He was used to Pixie's outbursts, and quite unperturbed thereby, although a stranger would have quailed at the sound, and would certainly have imagined that some horrible form of torture was being employed. Pixie checked herself sufficiently to peep at his face, realised that violence was useless, and promptly changed her tactics. She whimpered dismally, and essayed cajolery.
"It will break me heart to leave you. Father darlin', let me stay! What will you do without your little girl at all?"
"I'll miss you badly, but it's for your own good. That brogue of yours is getting worse and worse. And such a fine school, too! Think of all you will be able to learn!"
"Me education's finished," said Pixie haughtily. "I know me tables and can read me books, and write a letter when I want, and that's all that's required of a young gentlewoman living at home with her parents. I've heard you say so meself--a hundred times, if once."
It was too true. The Major recognised the argument with which he had been wont to answer his wife's pleas for higher education, and was incensed, as we all are when our own words are brought up against us.
"You are a very silly child," he said severely, "and don't understand what you are talking about. I am giving you an opportunity which none of your brothers and sisters have had, and you have not the decency to say as much as `Thank you.' I am ashamed of you. I am bitterly ashamed!"
Such a statement would have been blighting indeed to an ordinary child, but Pixie looked relieved rather than otherwise, for her quick wits had recognised another form of appeal, and she was instantly transformed into an image of penitence and humiliation.
"I am a bad, ungrateful choild, and don't deserve your kindness. I ought to be punished, and kept at home, and then when I grew older and had more sense I'd regret it, and it would be a warning to me. Esmeralda's cleverer than me. It would serve me right if she went instead."
It was of no avail. The Major only laughed and repeated his decision, when Pixie realised that it was useless fighting against fate, and resigned herself to the inevitable with characteristic philosophy.
Her outbursts of rebellion, though violent for the time being, were of remarkably