y to do my best
for her. Good-bye. I must not stay any longer now, or Nurse will be
coming to scold me, but," with a smile, "I must just stay long enough to
say I engage Mona now to come to me in April. We will talk about wages
and uniform, and all those things later on, when you are both stronger,
and I have had time to think. Now, good-bye--and Mona, don't keep your
mother awake, or I shall be in everyone's bad books."

"Oh, I'm as excited as she is, I think," said Lucy, smiling up at Mona's
future mistress, "and it will be a real pleasure to me to teach her and
get her as ready as I can--and I can't tell you, Miss, how pleased her
father'll be that she is going where she will be so happy and well looked
after."

Grace Lester clasped Lucy's hand again. "It will be a great pleasure to
me to have her," she said warmly, "and, trained by you, I know she will be
a comfort to any mistress."

With this new interest to lift her thoughts from her troubles, Mona
regained health so rapidly that she was able to leave the hospital sooner
than anyone had dared to hope. Poor Lucy, who had to stay there some
weeks longer, watched her departure with tearful eyes. "I shall feel
lonely without you, dear," she said, "but for your own sake, and father's,
I am glad you are going home. You will look after him, won't you, and see
to his comforts--and I'll be back in about three weeks, they say, though
I'll have to go about on crutches for a bit."

"Oh, yes, I'll look after father. Don't you worry, mother, I'll see to
things," Mona reassured her.

"I expect you will find the house in a pretty mess, and the garden too.
When I ran out that night, I little thought I wouldn't be back for nigh on
two months. It's a lesson to one to be always prepared."

"Don't you worry, mother, we'll soon get it all straight again. I am sure
your place was tidier than any other in Seacombe would be, left in a hurry
like that, and in the middle of the night."

"But, Mona, you mustn't do too much." Lucy's anxieties took a new
direction. She knew how Mona could, and would work, when she was in the
mood to. "Don't be doing too much and making yourself ill. That would
trouble me ever so much more than having the house untidy. You leave it
all till I come home. When I am able to move about again I'll soon get
things nice."

Mona nodded, with a laugh in her eyes. "Why, of course, everything will
be scrubbed inside and out, top and bottom, when