"I don't know. Some of us appear to have discovered a pretty fair substitute for wings. But you know I am looking forward to your dissecting-room far more even than to the Zoological Gardens."
"You don't really mean to see the dissecting-room?"
"Of course I do. Why not?"
"Chiefly, I suppose, because you never can see it. No outsider can form any conception of what the dissecting-room really is. You would only be horrified at the ghastliness of it,—shocked that young girls can laugh over such work."
"Do they laugh?" said Doris, in an awestruck tone. She had pictured to herself heroic self-abnegation; but laughter!
"Of course they do, if there is anything to laugh at. We laughed a great deal at an Irish girl who could only remember the nerves of the arm by ligaturing them with different-coloured threads. When girls are doing crewel-work, or painting milking-stools, they are not incessantly thinking of the source of their materials. No more are we."
"But it is so different."
"Is it? I don't know. If it is, a merciful Providence shuts our eyes to the difference. It simply becomes our work, sacred or commonplace, according to our character and way of looking at things. There are minor disagreeables, of course; but what pursuit is without them? And if they are greater in practical anatomy than in other things, there is increased interest to make up for them."
"Oh yes, I am sure of that. I think nothing of disagreeables in such a cause. And I suppose what you say is very natural; but I always fancied that lofty enthusiasm would be necessary to carry one through."
"I think lofty enthusiasm is necessary to carry us nobly through anything. But lofty enthusiasm is not an appendage to wear at one's finger-ends; it is the heart, the central pump of the whole system, about which we never think till we grow physically or morally morbid. You know, dear, I don't mean to say that the dissecting-room is pleasant from the beginning. Before one really gets into the work it is worse than ghastly, it isawful. That is why I say that outsiders should never see it. For the first few days, I used to clench my teeth, and repeat to myself over and over again, 'After life's fitful fever, he sleeps well.' It sounds ironical, does not it? But it comforted me. On any theory of life,thisstruggle was over for one poor soul; and, judging by the net result in this world, it must have been a sore and bitter struggle. But you know I could not have gone on like that; it would have killed me. I had to cease thinking about it at all in that way, and look upon it simply as my daily work—sometimes commonplace, sometimes enthralling. Sir Douglas would say I grew hardened, but I don't think I did."
"Hardened!" said Doris, her own eyes softening in sympathy as she watched Mona's lips quiver at the bare recollection of those days. "How like a man!"
"I never spoke of this before, except once when my uncle made me; but if you are determined to go in——"
"Oh yes, I mean to see all I can. You don't object very much, do you?"
"Object?" Mona's earnestness had all gone. "Did you ever know me object to anything? I did not even presume to advise; I only stated an opinion in the abstract. But here is York, and luncheon. We can continue the conversation afterwards."
But the conversation was over for that day. Just as the train was about to start, Doris leaned out of the window.
"Oh, Mona," she said, "here is a poor woman with four little children, looking for a carriage that will hold them all. Poor soul! She does look hot and tired. I do wish she would look in our direction. Here she comes!"
Doris threw open the door, and lifted the children and bundles in, one by one.
"You did not mind, did you?" she said suddenly to Mona, as the train moved on.
"Oh no!" Mona laughed, and shrugged her shoulders.
"One must pay the penalty of travelling with aschöne Seele!"
Glaring lights in the murky darkness, hurrying porters pursuing the train, eager eyes on the platform strained in the direction of the windows, announced the arrival of the Flying Scotchman at King's Cross.
"Are you sure your husband will be here to meet you?" said Doris to herprotégée. "I will stay with the children till you find him. Mona, dear, I had better say good night. I will call to-morrow morning to see you and enquire for your friend."
"Is there any one here to meet you?"
"I saw my aunt's footman a minute ago. He will find me presently."
A moment later a beautiful, white-haired old clergyman came up, removing his glove before shaking hands with Mona.
"I scarcely know how to thank you," he said, in a low voice. "You are a friend in need."
"And Lucy?"
"Lucy's temperature, as I expected, has gone down with a run since she heard you were coming. The doctor says all will be well now."
Mona drew a long breath of relief, and looked up in his face with a smile.
He laid his hand on her shoulder. "Where is your luggage?"
"This porter has my valise. That is all."
They got into a hansom, while the tall footman conducted Doris to a neat brougham, and a moment later they rattled away.
If Sir Douglas made Mona "a girl again," Mr Reynolds made her feel herself a child. With him her superficial crust of cynicism vanished like hoar-frost before the sun, and gave place to a gentle deference which had completely won the old man's heart. "The type of woman I admire," he had said with dignity to Lucy, "is the woman of clear intellect;" but it is probable that the woman of clear intellect would have appealed to him less, if she had not looked at him with pathetic revering eyes that seemed to say, "They call me clever and strong, but I am only a fatherless girl after all."
"Will Lucy be settled for the night when we get home?" Mona asked, when she had exhausted her other questions.
"No; she gets a hypodermic injection of morphia when the pain comes on, and that was to be postponed, if possible, till our arrival."
In a few minutes the cab drew up at a dimly lighted door in Bloomsbury. The house was old-fashioned and substantial; but a certain air of squalor is inseparably associated with most London lodgings, and it was not altogether absent here.
"Will you show this lady to her room?" said the clergyman courteously to the maid who opened the door.
"Not yet, thank you," said Mona. "Show me to Miss Reynolds's room, please. I will go there first."
The room was brightly lighted with a pretty lamp, for Lucy could not bear to have anything gloomy about her. She was lying in bed, propped up with pillows, her eyes curiously large and bright, her cheeks thin, her face worn with recent suffering.
Mona bit her lip hard. She had not realised that a few days of fever and pain could work such a change.
Lucy tried to stretch out her arms, and then let them fall with a pitiful little laugh. "I can't hug you yet, Mona," she said, "but oh! it is good to see you," and tears of sheer physical weakness filled her eyes.
"You poor little thing! What a scolding you shall have when you are better! You are not to be trusted out of my sight for a moment."
"I know," said Lucy feebly. "I never should have got ill if you had been here; and now I shall just have one illness after another, till you come back and go on with your work."
She looked so infinitely pathetic and unlike herself that Mona could scarcely find words. Instinctively she took Lucy's wrist in one cool hand, and laid the other on the child's flushed cheek.
"Oh, I am all right now. Of course my heart bounded off when I heard the hansom stop. But here comes my doctor. I scarcely need you to send me to Paradise to-night, doctor; my friend Miss Maclean has come."
Mona held out her hand. "Your name is almost as familiar to me as my own," she said. "It is a great pleasure to meet you."
Dr Alice Bateson took the proffered hand without replying, and the two women exchanged a frank critical survey. Both seemed to be satisfied with the result. Dr Bateson had come in without gloves, and with a shawl thrown carelessly about her girlish figure. Her hat had seen palmier days, but its bent brim shaded a pair of earnest brown eyes and a resolute mouth.
"She means work," thought Mona. "There is no humbug about her."
"The girl has somenous," thought the doctor. "She would keep her head in an emergency."
"Well, and how are you?" she said, turning with brusque kindness to Lucy.
"Oh, I am all right—not beyond the need of your stiletto yet, though," and she held out a pretty white arm.
The medical visit did not last more than three minutes. Dr Bateson took no fees from medical students, and she had too many patients on her books to waste much time over them, unless there seemed to be a chance that she could be of definite use, physical or moral. She had spent hours with Lucy when things were at their worst, but minutes were ample now.
"Oh yes. Miss Reynolds will do famously," she said to Mona, who had left the room with her. "Fortunately I was close at hand, and she sent for me in time. With a temperament like hers, the temperature runs up and down very readily, and it went up so quickly that I was rather uneasy, but it never reached a really alarming height. Good night, Miss Maclean. I hope we shall see you at 'The New' before long."
"Thank you; there is nothing I should like better than to work under you at the Women's Hospital," and Mona ran back to Lucy's room.
"Now, my baby," she said caressingly, "I will arrange your pillows, and you shall go to sleep like a good child."
"Sleep," said Lucy dreamily. "I don'tsleep. I go through the looking-glass into the queerest, most fantastic world you can imagine.C'est magnifique—mais—ce n'est pas—le—sommeil." She roused herself with a slight effort. "About three I go to sleep, and don't wake till ten. How good it will be to see you beside me in the morning!"
Mr Reynolds came into the room, kissed the little white hand that lay on the counterpane, and then gave Mona his arm.
"You poor child," he said, as they left the room together, "you must be worn out and faint. That is your room, and the sitting-room is just at the foot of the stair. I will leave the door open. Supper is waiting."
A very pleasant hour the two spent together. Mona was at her best with Mr Reynolds,—simple, earnest, off her guard; and as for the clergyman, he was almost always at his best now.
"I felt quite sure you would come," he said, "but I am ashamed to think of the trouble to which you have been put. I hope you have not had a very tiresome journey?"
"I have had a most pleasant journey from Edinburgh. My friend Doris Colquhoun came with me."
"Was that the fair young lady with the children? I was going to ask if you knew her. She had a very pleasing face."
"Yes; the children don't belong to her, but she has been mothering their weary mother. Doris is such a good woman. She does not care a straw for the petty personal things that most of us are occupied with. Even home comforts are a matter of indifference to her. But for animals, and poor women, and the cause of the oppressed generally, she has the enthusiasm of a martyr."
"She looks a mere girl."
"She is about my age; but she is so much less self-centred than I am, that she has always seemed to me a good deal older. She is my mother-confessor, and far too indulgent for the post."
"'A heart at leisure from itself'?"
"Yes, that is Doris all over. I don't believe she ever passed a sleepless night for sorrows of her own. By the way, Lucy says the morphia does not make her sleep."
"So she says, but it seems difficult to draw the line between sleeping and waking when one is under opium. I shall be thankful when Lucy can dispense with the drug, though I shall never forget my gratitude when I first saw the doctor administer it. It seemed to wipe out the pain as a wet sponge wipes out the marks on a slate."
"I know. There is nothing like it. We had a case in hospital of a man who was stabbed in the body. Modern surgery might have saved him, but he came into hospital too late, and they kept him more or less under morphia till the end. Whenever he began to come out of it, he wailed, 'Give me morphia, give me morphia!' and, oh, how unspeakably thankful one was that there was morphia to give him!"
The old man sighed. "It is a difficult subject, the 'mystery of pain.' We believe in its divine mission, and yet our theories vanish in the actual presence of it. When pain has been brought on by sin and folly, and seems morally to have a distinct remedial value, we should surely be very slow to relieve it; and yet how can we, seeing as we do only one little span of existence, judge of remedial value, except on a very small scale?"
"And therefore," said Mona deprecatingly, "we should surely err on the safe side, and be merciful, except in a case that is absolutely clear even to our finite eyes. At the best, the wear and tear of pain lowers our stamina—makes us less fit for the battle of life, more open to temptation."
He sighed again.
"'So runs my dream, but what am I?An infant crying in the night!'
Ah, well! if we can say at the last day, 'I was not wise, but I tried to be merciful,' I think we shall find forgiveness: and, if we are to find peace and acceptance, so surely must all those whom we have wittingly or unwittingly wronged."
Pleasant as the evening was, Mr Reynolds insisted on making it a very short one.
"No, no. Indeed you shall not sit up with Lucy to-night. You want rest as much as she does. If she still needs any one to-morrow, we will talk about it, but she is progressing by strides." He kissed Mona on the forehead, and she went to her own room, to sleep a long dreamless sleep, broken only by the entrance of the hot water next morning.
True to her promise, Doris called before eleven.
"Well, this is a surprise," said Mona. "I did not in the least expect to see you."
"Why? I said I would come."
"Yes; but I thought you would go off to visit that woman, and forget all about me. What is old friendship when weighed against the misfortune of being 'hadden doon' of a husband and four children!"
"The man was a selfish brute," said Doris, ignoring an imputation she would have resented if her mind had been less full of other things. "Did you notice? He let his wife carry more than half the bundles. I sent John to take them from her, and fortunately that put him to shame."
"And how did John like it?"
Doris laughed. "Oh, I don't know; I never thought of him. I think John is rather attached to me."
"I have yet to meet the man in any rank of life who knows you and is not attached to you. I think that has taught me more of the nature of men than any other one thing. They little dream of the contempt and scorn that lie behind that daisy face, and yet they seem to know by a sort of instinct that their charms are thrown away on you,—that the fruit is out of reach; and instead of sensibly saying 'sour grapes,' they knock themselves to pieces against the wall."
"Mona, you do talk nonsense! I have scarcely had an offer of marriage in my life."
"I imagine that few women who really respect themselves have more than one, unless the men of their acquaintance—like the population of the British Isles—are 'mostly fools.'"
"Oh, they are all that. But I think what you say is very true. The first offer comes like a slap in the face, 'out of the everywhere.' Who could have foreseen it? But after that one gets to know when there is electricity in the air, don't you think so?"
"I suppose so. But the experience is not much in my line. Sensible men are rather apt to think me aguter Kamerad, and one weak-minded young curate asked me to share two hundred a year with him—his 'revenue' he called it, by the way. Behold the extent of my dominion over the other sex! I sometimes think," she added gloomily, "it is commensurate with the extent to which I have attained the ideal of womanhood!"
"Mona! If the sons of God were to take unto themselves wives of the daughters of men, we should hear a different tale. As things are, I am glad you are not a man's woman. You are a woman's woman, which is infinitely better. If you could be turned into a man to-morrow, half the girls of your acquaintance would marry you. I know I would, for one."
"You are my oldest friend, Doris," said Mona gratefully. "The others like me because I am moody and mysterious, and occasionally motherly. Women always fall in love with the Unknown."
"How could they marry men if it were otherwise?" said Doris, but she did not in the least mean it for wit.
"You miserable old cynic! I am going to introduce you to-day—I say advisedly introduceyou—to a man who will convert even Doris Colquhoun to a love of his sex. He met me at the station last night, but I suppose you were too much taken up with yourprotégéesto notice him."
"I caught a glimpse of white hair and an old-world bow. One can't judge of faces in the glaring light and black shadows of a railway station at night."
"That's true. Everybody looks like an amateur photograph taken indoors. But you shall see Mr Reynolds to-day. He promised to come in. Present company excepted, I don't know that I love any one in the world as I do him—unless it be Sir Douglas Munro."
"Sir Douglas Munro! Oh Mona! I heard my father say once that Sir Douglas was a good fellow, but that no one could look at him and doubt that he had sown his wild oats very thoroughly."
"Don't!" said Mona, with a little stamp of her foot. "Why need we think of it? I cannot even tell you how kind he has been to me."
Doris was about to reply, but Mr Reynolds came in at the moment, and they chatted on general topics for a few minutes. "Dr Alice Bateson has just come in," he said, in answer to Doris's inquiry after Lucy.
Doris's face flushed. "Oh," she said eagerly, "I should so like to meet Dr Alice Bateson."
"Should you?" he said, with a fatherly smile. "That is easily managed. We will open the door and waylay her as she comes down. Ah, doctor! here is a young lady from Scotland who is all anxiety to make your acquaintance. May I introduce her?"
Miss Bateson came in. She did not at all like to be made a lion of, but Doris's fair, eager face was irresistible.
"I am very glad," Doris said shyly, "to express my personal thanks to any woman who is helping on what I consider one of the noblest causes in the world."
"It is a grand work," said Dr Bateson rather shortly. "Miss——" she looked at Mona.
"Maclean," said Mona, with a smile.
"Miss Maclean will be able to show you our School and Hospital. Perhaps we may meet some day at the Hospital. Good morning."
"Well?" said Mona, when she was gone.
"I think she is splendid—so energetic and sensible. But, you know, I do wish she wore gloves; and she would look so nice in a bonnet."
"Come, don't be narrow-minded."
"I am not narrow-minded. Personally I like her all the better for her unconventionality. It is the Cause I am thinking of."
"Oh, the Cause! It seems to me, dear, that the prophets of great causes always have a thorn in the flesh that they themselves are conscious of, and half-a-dozen other thorns that other people are conscious of; but the cause survives notwithstanding."
"I have no doubt that it will survive; but it seems to me that a little care on the part of the prophets would make it grow so much faster. Well, dear, I must go. I will come again on Friday. You will come to my aunt's 'At Home,' won't you?"
"If Lucy is better, and your aunt gives me another chance, I shall be only too glad. I shall have to unearth a gown from my boxes at Tilbury's. Heigh-ho, Doris! I might as well have gone all along, for all the good my abstinence did me. A deal of wasted pluck and moral courage goes to failing in one's Intermediate M.B.!"
"You have been gone a quarter of an hour," said Lucy fretfully, when Mona re-entered the sick-room, "and Miss Colquhoun had you all day yesterday."
"You are getting better, little woman," said Mona, kissing her.
"We have so much to talk about——"
"So we have, dear, but not to-day, nor yet to-morrow. I won't have my coming throw you back. You are to eat all the milk and eggs and nursery pudding that you possibly can, and I will read you the last new thing in three-volume novels."
Lucy resigned herself to thisrégimethe more readily as she was too weak to talk; and she certainly did make remarkable progress in the next day or two. She was very soon able—rather to her own disappointment—to do without morphine at night; and when, a few days later, Mona read the last page of the novel, Lucy was lying in a healthy natural sleep.
Mona stole out of the room, listened outside the door for a minute or two, and then ran down-stairs.
"I hope you are going out?" said Mr Reynolds, looking up from hisGuardian. "You have been shut up for three or four days now."
"Yes; I told Lucy that if she went to sleep I would go for a run. She is to ring as soon as she wakes."
"Well, don't hurry back. I expect the child will sleep all the afternoon; and if she does not, she may content herself with the old man's company for an hour or two."
"Lucky girl!" said Mona, looking at him affectionately. "I should think 'the old man's company' would more than make up to most people for being ill."
Lucy's fellow-students had called regularly to enquire for her, and this Friday morning a bright young girl had come in on her way to the Medical School, at the same moment as Doris Colquhoun.
"I only wish I were going with you," Doris had said to her; and Mona had thankfully availed herself of the opportunity so to arrange matters.
"I will go and have tea with Doris now," she thought, "and hear all her impressions before their edge has worn off."
She set off in high spirits. After all, it was very pleasant to be in London again, especially in this bright cold weather. The shop-windows still had all their old attraction, and she stopped every few minutes to look at the new winter fads and fashions, wondering what pretty things it would be well to take back to Borrowness; for Rachel had reluctantly consented to the investment of a few pounds in fresh stock-in-trade.
"Whatever I buy will be hideously out of keeping with everything else," thought Mona; "but a shop ought to be a shop before it professes to be a work of art. At present it is what Dr Dudley would call 'neither fish, flesh, fowl, nor guid red herrin'.'"
She had taken the measure of herclientèleat Borrowness pretty correctly, and she had a very good idea what things would appeal to their fancy, without offending her own somewhat fastidious taste; but she took as much pride in making the most of those pounds as if her own bread and cheese had depended on it. "We will do nothing hastily, my dear," she said to herself. "We will exhaust all the possibilities before we commit ourselves to the extent of one shilling. Oh dear, I am glad I have not to go to the School after all! I am in no mood for fencing."
Rash thought! It had scarcely passed through her mind before a voice behind her said—
"How do you do, Miss Maclean?" and looking round she saw two of her fellow-students, bag in hand.
As ill-luck would have it, one of them was the only student of her own year with whom Mona had always found herself absolutely out of sympathy. This one it was who spoke.
"It is a surprise to see you! Miss Reynolds said you were not coming back this winter."
"Nor am I. I am only in town for a day or two."
"Are you reading at home?"
"At present I am not reading at all."
"It seems a great pity."
"Do you think so? I think it does us no harm to climb up occasionally on the ridge that separates our little furrow from all the others, and see what is going on in the rest of the field."
"But you always did that, did you not? I thought you were a great authority on the uses of frivolling."
"And you thought it a pity that the results of my examinations did not do more to bear out my teaching? Never mind. It is only one of the many cases in which a worthy cause has suffered temporarily in the hands of an unworthy exponent."
The girl coloured. Mona's hypersensitive perception had read her thought very correctly.
"We miss you dreadfully," put in the other student hastily. "I do wish you would come back."
"I suppose," continued the first, glancing at the window before which they had met, "you are busy with your winter shopping. Regent Street has not lost its old attractions, though the Medical School has."
"What would they say," thought Mona, "if I calmly told them the whole truth?—that I am, with the utmost care and economy, buying goods for a very small shop in Borrowness, behind the counter of which I have the honour of standing, and serving a limited, and not very enlightened, public."
For a moment the temptation to "make their hair stand on end" was almost irresistible; but fortunately old habits of reserve are not broken through in a moment, and she merely said, "Oh no. It will be a serious symptom when Regent Street loses its attractions. That would indeed be a strong indication for quinine and cod-liver oil, or any other treatment you can suggest for melancholia. Good-bye, and success to you both!"
She shook hands—rather cavalierly with the first, cordially with the second. "Youall right?" she asked quietly, as they parted.
"Yes, thank you."
"Sheisqueer," said the student who had spoken first, when Mona was out of hearing. "My private opinion is that she is going to be married. My brother saw her on board one of the Fjord steamers in Norway a month or two ago, with a very correct party; and he said a tall fellow 'with tremendous calves' was paying her a lot of attention."
"Did your brother speak to her?"
"No. He was much smitten with her at the last prize-giving, and wanted me to introduce him, but I did not get a chance. She knows a lot of people. I think she gives herself too many airs, don't you?"
"I used to, but I began to think last term that that was a mistake. You know, Miss Burnet, I like her."
"I don't."
"The fact is,"—the girl coloured and drew a long breath,—"I know you won't repeat it, but I have much need to like her. I was in frightful straits for money last term. I actually had a summons served upon me. I could not tell my people at home, and one night, when I was simply in despair, I went to Miss Maclean. I did not like her, but borrowers can afford even less than beggars to be choosers, and she always seemed to have plenty of money. She was by no means the first person I had applied to, and I had ceased to expect anything but refusals. Well, I shall never forget how her face lighted up as she said, 'How good of you to come to me! I know what it is to be short of money myself.' I did not think she gave herself airs then; I would have worked my fingers to the bone, if it had been necessary, to pay her back before the end of term."
"I don't see anything so wonderful in that. She had the money, and you had not."
"That's all very well. Wait till you have been refused by half-a-dozen people who could quite afford to help you. Wait till you have been treated to delightful theories on the evils of borrowing, when you are half frantic for the want of a few pounds."
"I am sure Miss Maclean wastes money enough. I was in the pit at the Lyceum one night, and I saw her and Miss Reynolds in the stalls. I am quite sure none of the money came out of Miss Reynolds' pocket."
"Miss Reynolds is a highly favoured person. I quite admit that there is nothing wonderful abouther. But I like Miss Maclean, and if she gives up medicine she will be a terrible loss."
"She has been twice ploughed."
"The more shame to the examiners!"
"Doris," said Mona a few minutes later, as she entered the æsthetic drawing-room where her friend was sitting alone at tea, "stay me with Mazawattee and comfort me with crumpets, for I have just met mybête noire."
Doris looked up with a bright smile of welcome. "Come," she said, "'don't be narrow-minded'!"
Mona took up a down cushion and threw it at her friend.
"Pick that up, please," said Doris quietly. "If my aunt comes in and sees her new Liberty cushion on the floor, it will be the end of you, so far as her good graces are concerned."
Mona picked it up, half absently, and replaced it on the sofa.
"Well, go on. Tell me all about yourbête noire. Who is he?"
"He, of course! How is one to break it to you, dear Doris, that every member of our charming sex is not at once a Hebe and a Minerva?"
"I will try to bear up—remembering that 'God Almighty made them to match the men.' Proceed."
But Mona did not proceed at once. She drank her tea and looked fierce.
"I am narrow-minded," she said at last. "I wish that any power, human or divine, would prevent all women from studying medicine till they are twenty-three, and any woman from studying it at all, unless she has some one qualification, physical, mental, moral, or social, for the work. These remarks do not come very aptly from one who has been twice ploughed, but we are among friends."
"Well, dear," said Doris thoughtfully, "there were a few students at the School to-day whom one could have wished to see—elsewhere; but on the whole, they struck me as a party of happy, healthy, sensible, hard-working girls."
"Did they?" said Mona eagerly; "I am very glad."
"Yes, assuredly they did, and a few of them seemed to be really remarkable women."
"Oh yes! the exceptions are all right; but tell me about your visit. I wish you could have gone in summer, when they are sitting about in the garden with books and bones, and materia medica specimens."
"Two of them were playing tennis when I went in—playing uncommonly well too. We watched them for a while, and then we went to the dissecting-room."
"Well?"
"I am very glad you told me what you did about it—very. I think if I had gone quite unprepared I might have found it very ghastly and very awful. It is painful, of course, but it is intensely interesting. The demonstrator is such a nice girl. She took me round and showed me the best dissections; I had no idea the things looked like that. Do you know"—Doris waxed triumphant—"I know what fascia is, and I know a tendon from a nerve, and both from a vein."
"You have done well. Some of us who have worked for years cannot say as much—in a difficult case."
"Don't mock me; you know what I mean. Oh, Mona, how you can be in London and not go back to your work is more than I can imagine."
"Yes? That is interesting, but not strictly to the point. What did you do when you left the dissecting-room?"
"Attended a physiology lecture, delivered by a young man who kept his eyes on the ceiling, and never moved a muscle of his face, unless it was absolutely necessary."
"I know," said Mona, laughing; "but he knew exactly what was going on in the room all the time, and was doubtless wondering who the new and intelligent student was. He is delightful."
"He seemed nice," said Doris judicially, "and he certainly was very clever; but it would be much better to have women lecturers."
"That's true. But not unless they did the work every whit as well as men. You must not forget, dear, that a good laundress helps on the 'cause' of women better than a bad doctor or lecturer."
"Oh, I know that. But there must be plenty of women capable of lecturing on physiology."
Mona shrugged her shoulders.
"More things go to making a good physiology lecturer than you imagine,—a great many more," she added impressively.
Doris's face flushed.
"Not vivisection!" she exclaimed.
"Yes, vivisection. It may be that our modern science has gone off on an entirely wrong tack; it may be, as a young doctor said to me at Borrowness the other day, that we cannot logically stop short now of vivisecting human beings; but, as things are at present, I do not see how any man can conscientiously take an important lectureship on physiology, unless he does original work. I don't mean to say that he must be at that part of it all the time. Far from it. He may make chemical physiology or histology his specialty. But you see physiology is such a floating, growing, mobile science. It exists in no text-book. Photograph it one day, and the picture is unrecognisable the next. What the physiologist has to do is to plunge his mind like a thermometer, into the world of physiological investigation, and register one thing one moment, and another thing the next. He need never carry on experiments on living animals before his students, but he must live in the midst of the growing science—or be a humbug. I thought once that I should like nothing better than to be a lecturer on physiology, but I see now that it is impossible," she shivered,—"although, you know, dear, vivisection, as it exists in the popular mind, is a figment of the imaginations of the anti-vivisectionists."
Doris did not reply. She could not bear to think that Mona did not judge wisely and truly; she tried to agree with her in most things; but this was a hard saying.
"What does the young doctor at Borrowness say to a woman doctor?" she asked suddenly.
Mona winced. "He does not know that I am a medical student. Why should he?"
"Oh, Mona, you don't mean to say you have not told him! What an opportunity lost!"
"It is not my custom to go about ticketed, dear; but, if you wish, you shall tie a label round my neck."
"However, you will see him again. There is no hurry."
"It is to be hoped not," said Mona a little bitterly; "and now, dear, I must go."
Lucy was up—actually standing by the fire in her own room—and Lucy was as saucy as ever.
"I believe you have grown," said Mona, regarding her critically.
"I should think I had! I must be two inches taller at least. What do you think, Mona? I have had two offers of marriage this summer."
"That is not surprising. I never had much opinion of the intelligence of the other sex. I hope you refused them."
"I did; but I will accept the next man who asks me, even if he is a chimney-sweep, just to spite you."
"Poor chimney-sweep! But look here, Pussy, you should not stand so long. Sit down in the arm-chair, and let me wrap you up in the eider-down. And put your feet on the stool—so! Comfy?"
"Very comfy, thanks."
"When you are strong enough, I want you to give me a full, particular, and scientific account of your illness. How came you by acute rheumatism? You are not a beef and beer man."
"Well, when I went home I was in the most tearing spirits for the first week, and then I gradually began to feel fit for nothing. No appetite, short breath, and all the rest of it. I knew all I wanted was a tonic, and I determined to prescribe one for myself, on the strength of an intimate acquaintance with Mitchell Bruce. As a preparatory step, in the watches of the night, I tried to run over the ingredients and doses of the preparations of iron; but for the life of me I could not remember them. Think of it! A month after the examination! I could not even remember thatpièce de resistance—you know!—the 'cinchona bark, calumba root, cloves' thing."
"Compound tincture of cardamoms and tincture of orange-peel," completed Mona mechanically.
"Of course. That's it. 'Macerated in peppermint-water,' wasn't it? or something of that sort. However, it does not matter now that I have passed."
"Not in the least!"
"Well, while I meditated, mother sent for the doctor, a mere boy—ugh! If I had been seriously ill, I should have said, 'Welcome death!' and declined to see him; but it was only a question of a tonic, so I resigned myself. He prescribed hypophosphites, and said I was to have a slice off the roast, or a chop or something, and a glass of porter twice a day."
"Ah!" said Mona.
"It was no use telling mother that the infant knew less than I did. He was 'the doctor,' and that was enough. His word was law. I will say this for him, that I did get stronger; but just before I came back to town, I began to feel ill in quite a different way; indescribably queer, and fidgety and wretched. Mother made me stick to the beef and porter, as if my soul's weal had depended on it, and we all hoped the change to London might do me good. Just at first, I did feel a little better, and one afternoon Marion Proctor asked me to go down the river with her, and I went. My white dress was newly washed, and I had just done up my hat for the sixth time this summer. You may say what you like, Mona, but I did look awfully nice."
"I don't doubt it."
"I did not take my waterproof, because it completely spoilt the general effect, and I was sure it would not rain; but, as I told you, a tremendous thunderstorm came on, and we were drenched."
"Oh, Lucy!"
"When we got back here, there was not a fire in the house, and, do what I would, I got thoroughly chilled. I was shivering so, and I felt so feverish, that Marion insisted on spending the night with me. She slept in the room you have, and I was to knock on the wall if I wanted her."
Lucy stopped and shivered.
"There, dear," said Mona, "you will tell me the rest another time. You are tiring yourself."
"No, I am not; I like to tell you. Mona, I woke at two in the morning with these words in my mind, 'The sufferings of the damned.' Don't call me irreverent. You don't know what it is. It took methree-quarters of an hourto get out of bed to knock for Marion, and the tears were running down my face like rain."
"My poor baby!" Mona got up and knelt down beside her; but Lucy was already laughing at the next recollection.
"Oh, Mona, I did not see the comedy of it then, but I shall never forget that sight. The glimmering candle—Marion shivering in her night-dress, her sleepy eyes blinking as she read from a medical book, 'Rheumatism is probably due to excess of sarcolactic acid in the blood'! as if I was not far past caring what it was due to! Good old Marion! she dressed herself at once, and at six she went for Dr Bateson. Of course with the dawn the pain just came within the limits of endurance; but when the doctor gave me morphia, I could have fallen down and worshipped her."
"You poor little girl! How I wish I had been here! Let me go, dear, a minute. It is time for your medicine.'
"Nasty bitter-sweet stuff—I wish I could stopthat!"
"Why? I am sure it has worked wonders. How I wish we knew exactly how it acts!"
Lucy laughed. "You are as bad as Marion," she said. "If you were on the rack, you would not trouble yourself to understand the mechanism that stopped the wheels, so long as they were stopped. I leave it to you, dear, to cultivate the infant bacillus on a nice little nutrient jelly, and then polish him off with a dilute solution of salicin."
"What we want now," said Mona meditatively, stroking the curly red hair, "is to get back our baby face. How do we mean to set about it?"
Lucy made a littlemoue. "Dr Bateson said something about the south of France—such a waste of time! And Father says when I come back to London I am to live at the College Hall again."
"I am very glad to hear it. I always thought your leaving was a great mistake."
"Why, you lived in rooms yourself!"
"Oh,I! I am an old granny full of fads, and quite able to take care of myself."
"Your best friend could not deny that you are full of fads; and that reminds me, Mona, it is your innings now. I am 'clagging' to hear all about Borrowness, and the shop and your cousin. Your last letter fell very flat on expectant spirits."
Mona went leisurely back to her chair. "You see, dear," she said, "I am in rather a difficult position. It would be very amusing to give you a piquant account of my doings; but I went to Borrowness of my own free will, and even an unvarnished story of my life there would be disloyal to my cousin. Borrowness is not a pretty place. The country is flat, but the coast is simply glorious. The rocks——"
"Thanks—I don't mind taking the rocks for granted. I want to hear about your cousin and the shop."
"I will give you a rough outline of my cousin, and leave the details to your vivid imagination. She is very kind, very pious, very narrow, and very dull."
"Good Lord deliver us!" murmured Lucy gravely. "And the shop?"
"The shop is awful. You can imagine nothing worse than the truth."
"A nice sphere for Mona Maclean!"
"Oh, my dear, there is sphere enough in all conscience—only too much sphere! I never saw so clearly in my life before that nothing depends on what a man does, but that everything depends on how he does it. Even that twopenny-halfpenny shop might be made a centre of culture and taste and refinement for the whole neighbourhood."
"You would have to get rid of your cousin first."
"I don't know. One would rather have quite a free hand. But she is wonderfully liberal about things that must seem sheer nonsense to her."
"She well may be!"
"That is absurd. Why should she pay in appreciation for qualities that she does not in the least want, and would rather be without? You must not judge of my suitability to her by my suitability to—you, for instance."
"Then she does not even appreciate you?"
Mona meditated before replying. "She likes me," she said, "but she thinks me absurdly 'superior' one minute, and gratuitously frivolous the next. She has not got hold of the main thread of my character, so of course she thinks me a bundle of inconsistencies."
"Why do you stay?"
Mona sighed. "We won't go into that, dear. I have committed myself. Besides, my cousin likes me; she was very unwilling to part with me, even for a week."
"Selfish brute!" said Lucy inconsistently. "Is there any society?"
"No; but if there were, it would consider itself a cut above me."
"Any men?"
There was a momentary pause. "My dear, do I ever know anything about the men in a place?"
"I was hoping you had started a few of your Platonic friendships. They would at least save you from moping to death."
"Moping to death!" said Mona, springing to her feet "My dear child, I never was farther from that in my life. I botanise, and once in a way I meet some of the greatest living scientists. I do the best sketches I ever did in my life, and I have developed a greater talent for millinery than you can even conceive!"
A dense fog hung over the city.
Doris and Mona had spent half the day among the shops and stores, and Mona was in a glow of satisfaction. She was convinced that no human being had ever made a ten-pound note go so far before, and it was with difficulty that she could be induced to talk of anything else.
Doris was much amused. She believed in letting people "gang their ain gait," and a day with Mona was worth having under most conditions; but how any intelligent human being could elect to spend it so, was more than she could divine.
"It would have come to all the same in the end," she said, laughing, "if you had sent a general order to the Stores, and left the details to them; and it would have saved a vast amount of energy."
"Ah!" said Mona. When the two girls were together, Mona felt about petty things what Doris felt about great ones, that one must not expect absolute sympathy even from one's dearest friends.
By common consent, however, they dropped into St James's Hall for an hour, when their work was over, to refresh themselves with a little music. The overture to Tannhäuser was the last item on the programme, and Mona would have walked twenty miles any day to hear that. It was dark when they left the building, and the fog had reduced the sphere of each street lamp to a radius of two or three yards; but Mona could easily have found her way home to "blessed Bloomsbury" with her eyes shut. Doris was going to the Reynolds' to supper, to meet Lucy for the first time, and her aunt's brougham was to fetch her at night.
"Listen, Mona," she said suddenly, as they made their way along Piccadilly, "there are two men behind us discussing your beloved Tannhäuser."
This was interesting. Mona mentally relinquished her knick-knacks, and pricked up her ears.
At first she could only hear something about "sheer noise," "hideous crash of chords," "gospel of din"; but a moment later the hand that rested on Doris's arm twitched involuntarily, for the mellow, cultured voice that took up the discussion was strangely familiar.
"My dear fellow, to my mind that is precisely the point of the whole thing. The Pilgrims' Chorus is beautiful and suggestive when one hears it simply and alone, in its own special sphere, so to speak; but when it rises clear, steady, and unvarying, without apparent exertion, above all the reiterated noise and crash and distraction of the world, the flesh, and the devil,—why, then, it is an inspiration. It becomes triumphant by sheer force of continuing to be itself."
The first voice said something about "want of melody." and then the deep bass went on,—
"I am not at all learned in the discussion from a technical point of view. To my mind it is simply a question of making the opera an organic whole,—not a collection of works of art, but one work of art. TakeDon Juanfor instance——"
The men turned down a side street, and the voices died away in the distance.
"What a beautiful voice!" said Doris.
"Yes."
"Do you know, Mona, I think that must have been a nice man."
"Because of the voice?"
"Because of the voice, and because of what the voice said. Young men don't talk like that as a rule."
"How do you know he was young?"
"I am sure that 'my dear fellow' was not more than twenty-five."
"Twenty-seven, I should think," said Mona reflectively.
Doris laughed. "You are very exact. Or is it that you have gone back to the inkstands?"
Mona sighed. "Yes," she said gravely, "I have gone back to the inkstands."
There was silence for a few minutes.
"I should like to know who that young man was," said Doris presently.
"Why, Doris, you are coming out in a newrôle. It is not like you to be interested in a young man."
"The more reason why I should be interested in an exceptional one."
"You dear old Doris!" said Mona affectionately. "He talks well, certainly; but what if talking be, like Gretchen's beauty, hisYerderben?"
"I don't think it likely—not that kind of talking."
"Assuredly that kind—if any."
But she thought, "Not any. He has chosen the right corrective. If he possesses the gift of utterance, he will at least have something to utter."
"It has been such a delightful week," said Doris, "and now another nice long railway journey with you to-morrow will bring it all to an end. You are a highly privileged mortal, Mona, to be able to order your life as you choose."
Mona smiled without replying. This was a well-worn subject of debate.
"I know what you are going to say," continued Doris. "But it is no use asking me. I don't knowwhichof those little inkstands was the best, and I think you did very wisely in ordering an equal number of both."
"Yes," said Mona; "and the hinges were so strong, weren't they? That is the point to look to in a cheap inkstand."
"What an age you have been!" said Lucy, as they entered the dining-room, where she was seated by the fire, arrayed in her comfortable dressing-gown. "I was just going to send the bellman after you. So glad to meet you, Miss Colquhoun."
"She is not so pretty as I am," Lucy thought, "but Mona will never see that."
Certainly Lucy's interest in the afternoon's shopping abundantly atoned for Doris's lofty indifference. "Of course, you had to have the things sent straight to the station," she said, "but I do wish I could have gone with you. Tell me all about it. Where did you go first?"
Fortunately Mr Reynolds came in at this moment, so Doris was not forced to go over all the ribbons and flowers and note-paper and what-nots again.
"Keep a thing seven years, and its use will come," said Mona. "My childish passion for shop-windows and pretty things has stood me in good stead, you see. You have no idea how crisp and fresh all the things looked. The shop will simply be another place. I need not blush now whenever a new customer comes in."
"How I wish I could come and see it!" said Lucy. "I am sure I could 'dress a window' beautifully. Do you think Borrowness would do me as much good as the Riviera? It would come a great deal cheaper, would not it?"
"Much," said Mona, smiling; "but the cutting east wind has a knack of finding out one's weak places, and you must not forget that you have a traitor in the garrison now."
"It is so awfully unfortunate! My fees are paid, and of course there have been a lot of new books this term. Father simply cannot afford to send me away."
"Don't fret. I think you will find that it can be done very cheaply."
"Cheapness is a relative thing. You must remember that our whole income does not come to much more than yours."
"Well, at least your board here would be saved."
In point of fact, Mona had already written to Lady Munro about her friend's illness, and she hoped the answer would be an invitation to Lucy to spend a month or two at Cannes. Mona knew that the Munros were not at all the kind of people who are on the outlook for opportunities to benefit their fellow-men, but for that very reason they might be the more likely to do a graceful action that actually came in their way. The arrangement was extremely awkward, so far as she herself was concerned, for she did not mean the Munros to know that she was spending the winter at Borrowness. However, that was a minor and selfish consideration, and no doubt it could be arranged somehow.
In the midst of the conversation supper was announced. It was a homely meal, but the simplest proceedings always acquired a charm and dignity when Mr Reynolds took part in them. As soon as it was over he took Mona aside.
"Dr Bateson tells me it is very desirable that Lucy should get into a warmer climate for a month or two," he said, "before a rheumatic habit has any chance to assert itself. I am anxious to send her to the south of France, and I want you to tell me how it can be cheaply and satisfactorily done. I need not tell you, after what you saw of our life when you were with us, that Lucy's education is a heavy strain upon my purse. In fact, I give it to her because a profession is almost the only provision I can make for her future. I never allow myself to be absolutely unprepared for an unexpected drain; but Lucy's hospital fees have just been paid, and altogether this has come at a most unfortunate time."
"I know very little about the matter at present," said Mona, "but I can easily make enquiries, as I have friends in the Riviera now. My impression is, that you can do it satisfactorily, and at the same time cheaply; but I will let you know before the end of the week."
"If my aunt declines to rise to the occasion," she thought, "I will manage by hook or by crook to make them take the money from me."
Meanwhile Doris and Lucy were getting on together pretty well. Doris was shy, but she was prejudiced in Lucy's favour by the fact that she was a woman and a medical student. Lucy was not at all shy, but she was somewhat prejudiced against Doris by the fact that she was Mona's oldest friend.
"Did not Mona look lovely at Mrs Percival's 'At Home'?" asked Lucy. "She always looks nice; but in that blue velvet, with her old lace and pearls, I think she is like an empress."
"She has a very noble face, and a very lovable face. I suppose she is not beautiful, though it is not always easy to believe it."
"Was she a great success?"
"I don't think I quite know what you mean by a success. Mona never commands a room. Perhaps she might if she laid herself out to do it. Every one who spoke to her seemed much interested in her conversation."
This was scarcely to the point. What Lucy wanted to know was whether Mona had proved "fetching"; but Doris's serene face was not encouraging, and she dared not ask.
"Mona is a fortunate being," she said.
"Oh, very!"
"It must be delightful to have plenty of new gowns and all sorts of pretty things."
Doris looked aghast. Mona sometimes talked in this way, but then Mona was—Mona. No one could look at her face and suspect her of real frivolity; but this child ought to be careful.
"It must be a great deal more delightful to be able to study medicine," she said, with a little more warmth than she intended.
Lucy shrugged her shoulders. "Oh yes," she said, uncertain whether she was speaking in jest or in earnest. Then she laughed,—
"So ist es in der Welt;Der Eine hat den Beutel,Der Andere das Geld."
"The fact is, our circles did not overlap much." she confided to Mona afterwards. "Our circumferences just touched somewhere about the middle of your circle."
"You see, Doris is a great soul."
"Ample reason, truly, why her circle should not coincide with mine. But you know, Mona, she would be a deal more satisfactory if she were a little less great, or a little small as well."
"She told me you were a dear little thing, and so pretty."
"She'snot pretty!"
"Perhaps not, but she is fascinating, just because she never tries to fascinate. A man of the world said to me at that 'At Home,' that Miss Colquhoun was just the woman to drive a man over head and ears in love."
"Did he really? Miss Colquhoun? How queer! What did you say?"
"I cordially agreed with him."
"But has she had many offers?"
"She would not talk of them if she had; but you may take it as broadly true, that every man of her acquaintance is either living in hope, or has practically—I saypractically—been rejected."
"Oh, Mona, that is a large order! You see, the fact is, I am jealous of Miss Colquhoun."
"My dear Pussy! Doris and I were chums before you were born."
"Raison de plus! Look here, dear! you say things to me that you would not say to her?"
"Oh yes!"
"And you don't say things to her that you would not say to me?"
"Oh yes!"
Lucy laughed, discomfited. "I choose not to believe it," she said.
Mona kissed her affectionately. "Come, that is right! With that comfortable creed for a pillow, you ought to have an excellent night."
Mona hesitated at the door of her own room, and then decided to run down for ten minutes to the sitting-room fire. She was too depressed to go to bed, and she wanted something to change the current of her thoughts. To her surprise, she found Mr Reynolds still in his large arm-chair, apparently lost in thought.
Prompted by a sudden impulse, she seated herself on a stool close to him, and laid her hand on his knee.
"Mr Reynolds," she said, "life looks very grey sometimes."
He smiled. "We all have to make up our minds to that, dear;" and after a pause he added, "This is a strange duty that you have imposed upon yourself."
"Yes."
"For six months, is it not?"
"Yes."
"How much of the time is over?"
"Little more than one month."
"And the life is very uncongenial?"
"At the present moment—desperately. Not always," she added, laughing bravely. "Sometimes I feel as if the sphere were only too great a responsibility; but now—I don't know how to face it to-morrow."
"Poor child! I can only guess at all your motives for choosing it; but you know that
'Tasks in hours of insight willed,Can be through hours of gloom fulfilled.'"
"Mr Reynolds, it was not insight, it was impulse. You see, I really had worked intelligently and conscientiously for years; I had never indulged in amusement purely for amusement's sake; and when I failed a second time in my examination, I felt as if the stars in their courses were fighting against me. It seemed no use to try again. Things had come to a deadlock. From the time when I was little more than a child, I had had the ordering of my own life, and perhaps you will understand how I longed for some one to take the reins for a bit. On every side I saw girls making light of, and ignoring, home duties; and, just I suppose because I had never had any, such duties had always seemed to me the most sacred and precious bit of moral training possible. I considered at that time that my cousin was practically my only living relative, and she was very anxious that I should go to her. I had promised to spend a fortnight with her in the autumn; but the day after I knew that I had failed, I wrote offering to stay six months.
"Of course I ought to have waited till I saw her and the place; but her niece had just been married, and she really wanted a companion. If I did not go, she must look out for some one else. I don't mean to pretend that that was my only reason for acting impulsively. The real reason was, that I wanted to commit myself to something definite, to burn my boats on some coast or other. I seemed to have muddled my own life, and here was a human being who really wanted me, a human being who had some sort of natural right to me."
"Dear child, why did you not come and be my elder daughter for a time? It would have been a grand thing for me."
Mona laughed through her tears, and, taking his delicate white hand in both her own, she raised it to her lips. "Sir Douglas said nearly the same thing, though he does not know what I am doing; but either of you would have spoilt me a great deal more than I had ever spoilt myself. You were kind enough to ask me to come to you at the time; but I thought then that I had passed my examination, and I did not know you as I do now. I was restless, and wanted to shake off the cobwebs on a walking tour: but when I heard that I had failed all the energy seemed to go out of me."
It was some minutes before he spoke.
"Tell me about your life at Borrowness. There is a shop, is there not?"
"I don't quarrel with the shop," said Mona warmly: "the shop is the redeeming feature. You don't know how it brings me in contact with all sorts of little joys and sorrows. I sometimes think I see the very selves of the women and girls, as neither priest nor Sunday-school teacher does. I have countless opportunities of sympathising, and helping, and planning, and economising—even of educating the tastes of the people the least little bit—and of suggesting other ways of looking at things. And there is another side to the question too. Some of those women teach me a great deal more than I could ever teach them."
"And what about your cousin?"
Mona hesitated. "I told Lucy that to give even a plain, unvarnished account of my life at Borrowness would be a disloyalty to my cousin, but one can say anything to you. Mr Reynolds, I knew before I went that my cousin was not a gentlewoman, that ours had for two generations been the successful, hers the unsuccessful, branch of my father's family. I knew she lived a simple and narrow life: but how could I tell that my cousin would be vulgar?—that if under any circumstances it was possible to take a mean and sordid view of a person, or an action, or a thing, she would be sure to take that mean and sordid view? I have almost made a vow never to lose my temper, but it is hard—it is all the harder because she is so good!
"Now you know the whole story. Pitch into me well. You are the only person who is in a position to do it, so your responsibility is great."
He had never taken his eyes from her mobile face while she was speaking. "I have no wish to pitch into you well," he said; "you disarm one at every turn. I need not tell you that your action in the first instance was hasty and childish—perhaps redeemed by just a dash of heroism."
Mona lifted her face with quivering lips.
"Never mind the heroism," she said, with a rather pathetic smile. "It was hasty and childish."
"But I do mind the heroism very much," he said, passing his hand over her wavy brown hair. "I believe that some of the deeds which we all look upon as instances of sublime renunciation have been done in just such a spirit. It is one of the cases in which it is very difficult to tell where the noble stops and the ignoble begins. But of one thing I am quite sure—the hasty and childish spirit speedily died a natural death, and the spirit of heroism has survived to bear the burden imposed by the two."
"Don't talk of heroism in connection with me." Mona bit her lip. "I see there is one thing more that I ought to tell you, since I have told you so much. When I went to Borrowness there was some one there a great deal more cultured than myself, whose occasional society just made all the difference in my life, though I did not recognise it at the time. It is partly because I have not that to look forward to when I go back that life seems so unbearable."
"Man or woman?"
"Man, but he was nice enough to be a woman."
The words were spoken with absolute simplicity. Clearly, the idea of love and marriage had not crossed her mind.
"Did he know your circumstances?"
"No; he took for granted that Borrowness was my home. I might have told him; but my cousin had made me promise not to mention the fact that I was a medical student."
"And he has gone?"
"Yes; he may be back for a week or so at Christmas, but I don't know even that." Mona looked up into the old man's face. "Now," she said, "you know the whole truth as thoroughly as I know it myself."
He repaid her look with interest.
"Honest is not the word for her," he thought. "She is simply crystalline."
"If I had the right," he said, "I should ask you to promise me one thing."
"Don't say 'Ifhad the right,'" said Mona. "Claim it."
"Promise that you will not again give away your life, or any appreciable part of it, on mere impulse, without abundant consideration."
"I will promise more than that if you like. I will promise not to commit myself to anything new without first consulting you."
He could scarcely repress a smile. Evidently she did not foresee the contingency that had prompted his words. What a simple-hearted child she was, after all!
"I decline to accept that promise," he said; "I have abundant faith in your own judgment, if you only give it a hearing. But when your mind is made up, you know where to find a sympathetic ear; or if you should be in doubt or difficulty, and care to have an old man's advice, you know where to come for it. Make me the promise I asked for at first; that is all I want."
Mona looked up again with a smile, and clasped her hands on his knee. "I promise," she said slowly, "never again to give away my life, or any appreciable part of it, on mere impulse, without abundant consideration."
He smiled down at the bright face, and then stooped to kiss her forehead. "And now," he said, "let us take the present as we find it. I suppose no one but yourself can decide whether this duty is the more or the less binding because it is self-imposed."
Mona's face expressed much surprise. "Oh," she said, "I have not the smallest doubt on that score. I must go through with it now that I have put my hand to the plough."
"I am glad you think so, though there is something to be said on the other side as well. Your mind is made up, and that being so, you don't need me to tell you that you are doubly bound to take the life bravely and brightly, because you have chosen it yourself. Fortunately, yours is a nature that will develop in any surroundings. But I do want to say a word or two about your examination, and the life you have thrown aside for the time. I know you don't talk about it, but I think you will allow me to say what I feel. Preaching, you know, is an old man's privilege."