had now grown quite serious.

When her father had wanted her to come home, he had consoled himself for
taking her from granny by the thought that she had neighbours and friends
about her for company, but now it seemed that she would rather die alone
than ask their help, or even let them know that she was ill.

Mona turned despondently away, and slowly mounted the stairs. "If you do
ever so little a thing wrong, it grows and grows until it's a big thing!
Here's granny all alone, 'cause of me, and mother all alone, 'cause of me,
and worrying herself finely by now, I expect, and--and I shouldn't wonder
if it makes her ill again," Mona's eyes filled at the thought, "and--and I
never meant to be a bad girl. I--I seem to be one before I know it--it is
hard lines."

She unhung her old frock from behind the door, and in the chest of drawers
she found an old apron, "I shall begin to wonder soon if I've ever been
away," she thought to herself, as she looked at herself in the tiny
mirror.

"Puss, puss, puss," called a voice. "Come along, dears. Your breakfast
is ready."

Mona stepped to the window and peeped out. Mrs. Lane was standing with a
saucer of bread and milk in each hand. At the sound of her voice her two
cats came racing up the garden, chattering as they went, and she gave them
their meal out there in the sunshine. As she turned to go back to the
house she glanced up at Granny Barnes', and at the window where Mona
stood. Perhaps she had been attracted by the feeling that someone was
looking at her, or she may have heard something of Mona's arrival the
night before.

For a second a look of surprise crossed her face, and a half-smile--then
as quickly as it came it vanished, and a look of cold disapproval took its
place.

Mona felt snubbed and hurt. It was dreadful to have sunk so low in
anyone's opinion. It was worse when it was in Mrs. Lane's, for they used
to be such good friends, and Mrs. Lane was always so kind to her, and so
patient, and, oh, how Mona had loved to go into her house to play with her
kittens, or to listen to her stories, and look at the wonderful things
Captain Lane had brought home with him from some of his voyages.

Captain Lane, who had been a sailor in the Merchant Service, had been to
all parts of the world, and had brought home something from most.

Mona coloured hotly with the pain of the snub, and the reproof it
conveyed.

"I can't bear it," she thought. "I can't bear it--