ce, and scared her
into silence.

"Twelve, are you, and Lottie is sixteen! I sent for you, Pixie, to tell
you how bitterly grieved Mrs Vane and I are to think of all you have
suffered through our daughter's cowardice. I wish it were in our power
to do something for you in return, but I hope at least that Lottie has
expressed her regret before leaving, and begged your forgiveness!"

"No, she didn't beg anything. She just cried, and hugged me, and I
cried, and hugged her back. I knew she was sorry from the beginning;
and it was worse for her, because she knew all the time that she was
wrong, and I was quite comfortable inside. And she was very kind to me
before that. I liked her very much. She gave me an elegant little
brooch that she didn't want any longer."

Mr Vane turned aside, and looked into Miss Phipps's face, and Miss
Phipps looked back at him with a glance half smiling, half tearful, and
withal wholly proud, as though justified in something about which she
had previously been inclined to boast.

"Pixie finds no difficulty in forgiving, Mr Vane, and I think the best
thanks you could give her would be an opportunity of befriending Lottie
still further, and helping her to regain her position in the school. I
think it is an encouraging omen for the future that it is the girls
themselves who have persuaded me to take her back."

"They are very good! You are all very good," he said sadly. "I need
hardly say how much I appreciate your kindness. Good-bye, then, little
Pixie O'Shaughnessy, and I hope we may meet again under happier
circumstances. May you have happy holidays!"

"I'm going home," said Pixie eloquently. Her radiant face made such a
striking contrast to that other bleached, frightened-looking visage that
the father's heart softened as he looked from one to the other. He took
Lottie's hand and drew it tenderly through his arm.

"And so is Lottie, and if her parents seem stern with her, it is only
because they are anxious for her good. She perhaps hardly realises the
bitter pain it gives them to see her unhappy."

"Father!" cried Lottie eagerly, and now for the first time she clung to
him instead of shrinking out of sight, and seemed to find comfort in the
touch of his hand. The fifth-form girls, peeping cautiously out of the
window a few minutes later, were amazed to see her descend the steps
holding tightly to his arm, but they were too much engrossed with their
own exciting preparati