confide on every
occasion. Miss Phipps realised as much, and also that companions of her
own age would be better comforters than the teachers, between whom and
the pupils there was naturally a great gulf fixed; so she assented at
once, saying only--

"I will come for you in ten minutes. You must not stay downstairs
longer than that," and Pixie feebly tottered across the hall to the room
where the elder girls were sitting. She chose to join them rather than
the pupils of her own age, for, as she had previously explained, she had
been accustomed to "grown-ups" at home, and felt more interest in their
society. The girls raised their heads with starts of surprise as she
entered, and came slowly forward to seat herself in a chair. They
stared at her with melancholy eyes, but there was a dead silence, for no
one knew what to say or how to say it, so they sat in a row facing her,
and Pixie blinked and trembled, and screwed her fingers together in a
tight little knot.

"I'm an orphan!" she said faintly, and five separate sobs of sympathy
sounded as replies.

"Poor little kid!" said Kate gruffly.

"D-arling!" sobbed Flora.

"But we all love you, Pixie! Everyone loves you! You can't be lonely,
dear, when you have so many friends," said Margaret's soft voice; and a
hand stretched out and clutched hers in convulsive energy. It was
Lottie's hand, and Lottie's face was trembling as if she were going to
cry, and a pulse on her temple was beating up and down, Pixie looked at
her curiously, and realised that, sorry as the others were, she was
somehow sorriest of all, and most anxious to comfort. Lottie had been
much subdued and silent since the beginning of the term, and had seemed,
if anything, to avoid the society of the girl whom she had treated so
badly, but with her fine intuition Pixie had understood quite well that
the avoidance arose from no lack of affection. She held Lottie's hand
in a tight pressure while she continued her broken sentences.

"And I didn't know he was going to die. They never told me. Miss
Phipps says they didn't want me to be unhappy, but I'd rather have
known. He wasn't like other people's fathers. They are old, with grey
hair; he was young--like a boy, and so handsome and gay. He always
laughed, even if things went wrong, and I was the youngest, and he
wouldn't have me thwarted. No one ever appreciated me like the Major.
The very last words he spoke were praising me and saying what a