ever to hear the click of her husband’s latch-key. The greeting in the narrow hall was delightfully lover-like for a married couple of six years’ standing, and they entered the drawing-room arm-in-arm, smiling with a contentment charming to witness. Captain Victor was satisfied that no one in the world possessed such an altogether delightful specimen of womanhood as his “bride.” She was so sweet, so good, so unselfish, and in addition to these sterling qualities, she was so cheerful, so spontaneous, so unexpected, that it was impossible for life to grow dull and monotonous while she was at the head of the household.

He acknowledged tenderly, and with a shrug of the shoulders to express resignation, that she might have been a cleverer housekeeper and just a thought more economical in expenditure! but considering her happy-go-lucky upbringing under the most thriftless of fathers, the darling really deserved more praise for what she accomplished than blame for what was left undone.

Bridgie, on the contrary, considered that Dick worried his head ridiculously about ways and means. Not for the world and all that it contained would she have accused him of being mean: she merely shrugged her shoulders and reminded herself that he was English, poor thing! English people had a preference for seeing money visibly in their purses before they spent it, while she herself had been brought up in a cheerful confidence that it would “turn up” somehow to pay the bills which had been incurred in faith.

Captain Victor displayed not the faintest astonishment at discovering his sister-in-law on all fours, nor did he appear overcome to be introduced to her as a buffalo of the plains. He smiled at her almost as tenderly as at his own babies, and said—

“How do, Buff! Pleased to have met you. So kind of you to make hay in my drawing-room,” which reproof brought Pixie quickly to her rightful position. That was another English characteristic of Dick Victor—he hated disorder, and was not appreciative of uproar on his return from a day’s work. Therefore there were picture-books in waiting for his return, and after a few minutes parleying Pixie cajoled the children into the dining-room on the plea of a bigger and more convenient table for the display of their treasures, leaving the husband and wife alone.

Dick lay back in his easy chair, and stretched himself with an involuntary sigh of relief. He was devoted to his children, but a quiet chat with Bridgie was the treat par excellence at this hour of the day when he was tired and in need of rest. He stretched out a hand towards her, and she stroked it with gentle fingers.

“Ye’re tired, dear. Will I get you a cup of tea? It’s not long since it went out. If I poured some hot-water in the pot...”

Dick shuddered.

“Thank you, ma’am, no! If I have any, I’ll have it fresh, but I don’t care about it to-day. It’s nice just to rest and talk. Anything happened to you to-day?”

“There always does. It’s the most exciting thing in the world to be the mistress of a household,” said Bridgie, with relish. There were few days when Captain Victor was not treated to a history of accidents and contretemps on his return home, but unlike most husbands he rather anticipated than dreaded the recital, for Bridgie so evidently enjoyed it herself, taking a keen retrospective joy over past discomfitures.

The Victor household had its own share of vicissitudes, more than its share perhaps, but through them all there survived a spirit of kindliness and good fellowship which took away more than half the strain. Maidservants arriving in moods of suspicion and antagonism found themselves unconsciously unarmed by the cheery, kindly young mistress, who administered praise more readily than blame, and so far from “giving herself airs” treated them with friendly kindliness and consideration. On the very rare occasions when a girl was poor-spirited enough to persist in her antagonism, off she went with a month’s money in her pocket, for the peace of her little home was the greatest treasure in the world to Bridgie Victor, and no hireling could be allowed to disturb it. The service in the little house might not be as mechanically perfect as in some others, the meals might vary in excellence, but that was a secondary affair. “If a bad temper is a necessary accompaniment of a good cook, then—give me herbs!” she would cry, shrugging her pretty shoulders, and her husband agreed—with reservations!

He was a very happy, a very contented man, and every day of his life he thanked God afresh for his happy home, for his children, for the greatest treasure of all, sweet Bridget, his wife!

To-day, however, the disclosure had nothing to do with domestic revolutions, and Bridgie’s tone in making her announcement held an unusual note of tragedy.

“Dick, guess what! You’ll never guess! Pixie’s grown-up!”

For a moment Captain Victor looked as was expected of him—utterly bewildered. He lay back in his chair, his handsome face blank and expressionless, the while he stared steadily at his wife, and Bridgie stared back, her distress palpably mingled with complacence. Speak she would not, until Dick had given expression to his surprise. She sat still, therefore, shaking her head in a melancholy mandarin fashion, which had the undesired effect of restoring his complacence.

“My darling, what unnecessary woe! It’s astounding, I grant you; one never expected such a feat of Pixie; but the years will pass—there’s no holding them, unfortunately. How old is she, by the way? Seventeen, I suppose—eighteen?”

“Twenty—nearly twenty-one!”

Bridgie’s tone was tragic, and Dick Victor in his turn looked startled and grave. He frowned, bit his lip, and stared thoughtfully across the room.

“Twenty-one? Is it possible? Grown-up, indeed! Bridgie, we should have realised this before. We have been so content with things as they were that we’ve been selfishly blind. If Pixie is over twenty we have not been treating her fairly. We have treated her too much as a child. We ought to have entertained for her, taken her about.”

Bridgie sighed, and dropped her eyelids to hide the twinkle in her eyes. Like most husbands Dick preferred a quiet domestic evening at the end of a day abroad: like most wives Bridgie would have enjoyed a little diversion at the end of a day at home. Sweetly and silently for nearly half a dozen years she had subdued her preferences to his, feeling it at once her pleasure and her duty to do so, but now, if duty suddenly assumed the guise of a gayer, more sociable life, then most cheerfully would Irish Bridgie accept the change.

“I think, dear,” she said primly, “it would be wise. Esmeralda has said so many a time, but I took no notice. I never did take any notice of Esmeralda, but she was right this time, it appears, and I was wrong. Imagine it! Pixie began bemoaning that she was not pretty, and it was not herself she was grieving for, or you, or Me!”—Bridgie’s voice sounded a crescendo of amazement over that last pronoun—“but whom do you suppose? You’ll never guess! Her future lovers!”

It was just another instance of the provokingness of man that at this horrible disclosure Dick threw himself back in his chair in a peal of laughter; he laughed and laughed till the tears stood in his eyes, and Bridgie, despite herself, joined in the chorus. The juxtaposition of Pixie and lovers had proved just as startling to him as to his wife, but while she had been scandalised, he was frankly, whole-heartedly amused.

“Pixie!” he cried. “Pixie with a lover! It would be about as easy to think of Patsie. Dear, quaint little Pixie! Who dares to say she isn’t pretty? Her funny little nose, her big, generous mouth are a hundred times more charming than the ordinary pretty face. I’ll tell you what it is, darling,”—he sobered suddenly;—“Pixie’s lover,