I'll have to tell."

She went down to the kitchen in a very troubled state of mind.
Life seemed very sad and difficult just now.

Granny was sitting by the fire, a few sticks in her hand. "It's taken me
all this time to get these," she said pathetically, "and now I can't stoop
any more. What time we shall get any breakfast I don't know, I'm sure,
and I'm sinking for the want of something."

"I'll get you a cup of tea soon. I won't be any time." It cheered her a
little to have something to do, and she clutched at anything that helped
her not to think. She lighted the fire, swept the hearth up, and laid the
cloth. Then she went out to sweep the doorstep. It was lovely outside in
the sweet sunshine. Mona felt she could have been so happy if only----
While she was lingering over her task, Mrs. Lane came out to sweep her
step and the tiled path, but this time she kept her head steadily turned
away.

"I'll go right in and tell granny now this minute," thought Mona, her lip
quivering with pain. "Then, perhaps, we'll all be friends again.
I can't bear to live here like this."

But when she turned into the kitchen the kettle was boiling, and her
grandmother was measuring the tea into the pot. "Get the loaf and the
butter, child, I feel I can eat a bit of bread and butter this morning."

Mona got them, and the milk, and some more coal to make up the fire, and
all the time she was saying over and over to herself different beginnings
of her confession. She was so deeply absorbed in her thoughts that she
did not notice the large slice of bread and butter that her grandmother
had put on her plate.

"Don't you want it?" Granny asked sharply. "Why, how red you are, child!
What have you been doing to make your colour like that. You haven't
broken anything, have you?"

Her tone and her sharpness jarred on Mona cruelly, and put all her new
resolutions to flight. "No, I haven't," she said, sullenly.
"There wasn't anything to break but the broom, and you saw me put that
right away."

Granny looked at her for a moment in silence. "Your manners haven't
improved since you went home," she said severely. "If I'd spoken to my
grandmother like that, I'd have been sent to bed."

A new difficulty opened before Mona's troubled mind. If she was rude, or
idle, or disagreeable, the blame for it would fall upon Lucy, and that
would be an injustice she could not bear. Now that she had lost her she
realised how good Lucy had b