eems to me we are getting on very fast. I thought I said that
nothing was decided. Oh, please talk of something else!" cried
Esmeralda urgently; and Hilliard laughed once more, and obediently
discussed the weather until the Castle gates were reached.

CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT.

A TELEGRAM.

It was six weeks later that the girls in Holly House heard a sharp,
wailing cry from within the portals of Miss Phipps's private room, and
looked at each other with eyes of sympathetic understanding. The
knowledge that Pixie's father was seriously ill had leaked out among the
elder pupils, and this afternoon, as they returned from their walk, a
telegraph boy had met them in the drive, and Mademoiselle had turned
pale and muttered below her breath. Miss Phipps called her aside on
entering, and at tea-time there were unmistakable tear-marks round her
eyes, and she was even more affectionate than usual in her manner to
Pixie,--poor, unconscious Pixie, who was in radiant spirits, and quite
puffed up with pride because she had suddenly remembered a favourite
exploit as practised at Knock Castle, and had issued invitations to the
fifth-form to come to the classroom before tea and play the part of
spectators, while she made a circuit of the room without touching the
ground.

"Without--touching--the--ground! Pixie O'Shaughnessy, are you
demented?" demanded Flora incredulously. "You can't fly, I suppose?
Then how on earth could you get round a room without touching the
floor?"

"Come with me, me dear, and you shall see," returned Pixie graciously,
and forthwith led the way into the big, bare room. There was no class
being held at the time, so that the performer and her friends were the
only persons present; the chairs were neatly ranged beside the desks,
the matches and vases of spills which usually graced the mantelpiece
were placed together on a corner bracket, otherwise no article had been
moved from its place. Pixie sprang lightly on to a chair near the door,
kissed her hand after the manner of the lady riders at the circus, and
started off on her mad career.

From one chair to another, from chair number two to the shelf of the old
bookcase which filled the middle space of the wall; from the bookcase,
with a leap and a bound, on to the oak chest in which were stored
drawing-books and copies; from the chest to another chair, and thence
with a whoop and wildly waving hands to the end of an ordinary wooden
form. Why that for