tacles, shaking her head solemnly as Sylvia related how the new-
comer had just returned from Paris, where she had been living under the
charge of an old governess.

"That accounts for it!" she said darkly, when the explanations were
finished. "I never can understand why people want to go abroad when
there are so many good schools at their door. When I was a girl I went
to Miss Banks at Peckham, and it was most select. Every girl over
fifteen wore a bonnet; mine was white Dunstable, with check ribbons,
blue and white. I wore it with a dress with silk pipings, and it was
very much admired. My cousin Gertrude went to Paris, because her father
had business on the Continent, and she never got over it for years.
They gave her dreadful food, and when she could not eat it, it was put
aside and brought up meal after meal. She told me as a solemn fact that
they used to put fruit in the soup, and there was something dreadful
made of cabbages. Did they give you cabbages, my dear?"

"Mais oui, madame!" returned Pixie, involuntarily returning to the
language of the place of which they were speaking. "But they were
delicious, those cabbage! Mademoiselle has without doubt had an unhappy
experience. The cabbage of France is a most excellent cabbage. He
resembles himself absolutely to an English cabbage, but he is more well
prepared."

"Speak English, my dear, for pity's sake! I never could understand that
gibberish. My poor father paid extra for me to learn under a native,
but it seemed as if I always turned against it. Well, I don't
understand about the cabbages; Gertrude certainly said they were quite
sour, and mixed with all manner of horrible things!"

"Perhaps you mean sauerkraut, Aunt Margaret. She would hardly have that
in Paris. Are you quite sure it was not Germany where she was at
school?"

"Berlin, was it? Berlin!" said Miss Munns, meditating with her finger
to her lip. "Yes, I think it was, because I remember I always
associated it with the wool. All these foreign schools are alike.
Nothing comes of them but bowing and scraping. Give me a good sound
English education!"

Miss Munns threaded her needle through the heel of the black stocking
with an expression which seemed to imply that the last word was spoken
on that subject, and Pixie put on her most engaging manner as she
replied, as if anxious to prove that she was not altogether ruined by
her Continental experiences--

"Madame is without doub