More about Pixie | Page 8

glass, and was rewarded for her pains by catching a glimpse of a bald spot on the crown of her head, which put the finishing touch of depression.
When the doctor arrived for his morning visit, he found a most melancholy patient, and held a serious consultation with nurse on the staircase before departing.
"She seems very low and listless this morning. Can't you do something to cheer her up? I am afraid we are going to have trouble with that foot, and if she has to lie up again it will never do for her to get in a melancholy condition. You do your best, I know, but she needs a change. There is no reason why she should not see visitors. Has she no young friends who could come to have tea with her, and make her laugh?"
Whitey sighed, and leant against the banisters with a dejected air. It is exhausting work being cheerful for two, and no one would have welcomed a laughing stranger more heartily than herself. The question was,--where was she to be found?
"She was lamenting to me the other day that she had no girl-friends. She went abroad to school, and has had little opportunity of making acquaintances since she came home. Miss Munns is very--conservative. She does not care to associate with her neighbours. There is a charming girl who has come to live opposite. We watch her from the window, and Sylvia has been trying to persuade her aunt to call for the last three weeks; but it is useless. I'm sorry, for she looks just the very person we want."
"Won't call, won't she? We'll see about that. I'm not going to have my patient thrown back, after all the trouble I've had with her, for fifty old ladies and their prejudices. You leave it to me!" cried the jovial doctor, and tramped downstairs into the parlour to give his orders forthwith.
A little diplomacy, a little coaxing, a few words of warning to revive affectionate anxiety, a good big dose of flattery, and the thing was done; and, what was better still, Aunt Margaret was left under the happy delusion that the projected visit was the outcome of her own inspiration. She said nothing to the invalid, but at half-past three that afternoon she put on her woollen crossover, and a black silk muffler, and her best silk dolman, and dear Aunt Sarah's sable pelerine, and her Sunday bonnet, and new black kid gloves, two sizes too big, carried her tortoiseshell card-case in one hand, and her umbrella in the other, and sailed across the road to call at Number Three.
Sylvia had gone back to bed after lunch by her own request. The hair- cutting ordeal had tired her out, and there was, besides, a deep-seated wearing pain in one foot and ankle which made her long to lie still and rest. She tried to sleep, and after long waiting had just arrived at that happy stage when thoughts grow misty, and a gentle prickling feeling creeps up from the toes to the brain, when a patriotic barrel- organ began to rattle out the strains of "Rule, Britannia" from the end of the road, and the chance was gone. Then Whitey read aloud for an hour, but the book had come to a dull, uneventful stage, and the chapters dragged heavily.
Sylvia longed for tea as an oasis in this desert of a day, and despatched nurse to bid Mary bring it up half an hour before the usual time. And then came a charming surprise! Back came Whitey all smiles and dimples, the tired lines wiped out of her face as by a miracle. She stood in the doorway, looking at her patient with dancing eyes.
"I've brought you something better than tea!" she cried. "Just look what I have brought you!" As she spoke she moved to the side, as if to make room for another visitor, and--was it a dream, or could it really be true?--there stood the bride of Number Three, the sweet-faced Angelina, in her black dress, her grey eyes soft with welcome.
"Oh!" cried Sylvia shrilly. "Oh--oh!" She sat up in bed and stretched out two thin little hands, all a-tremble with excitement. "It's you! Oh, how did you come? What made you come? How did you know I wanted you so badly?"
"I wanted you too!" said the girl quickly. She had a delightful voice; soft, and deep, and musical in tone, and she was prettier than ever, seen close at hand. Best of all, she was not a bit shy, but as frank and outspoken as if they had been friends of years' standing. "Your aunt called on me this afternoon," she went on, coming nearer the bed, and sitting down on the chair which nurse placed for her. "She