Without staying to say good-bye, Mona ran, but either Millie's minute had
been a very long one, or 'Lion' had stepped out more briskly at the end of
the day than at the beginning, for when Mona got to the house John Darbie
was just coming away. "Thank'ee, ma'am," he was saying, and Mona saw him
putting some coins in his pocket.

"I've got the----" she began to call out to him, but stopped, for her new
mother came out to the gate, and looked anxiously down the hill. She was
looking for herself, Mona knew, and a fit of shyness came over her which
drove every other thought from her mind.

But almost as quickly as the shyness came it disappeared again, for Lucy's
eyes fell on her, and, her face alight with pleasure, Lucy came forward
with arms outstretched in welcome. "Why, you poor little tired thing,
you," she cried, kissing her warmly, "you must be famished! Come in, do.
I was quite frightened about you, for I've been expecting you this hour
and more, and then when Mr. Darbie came, and brought only your box,
it seemed as if I wasn't ever going to see you. Come in, dear," drawing
Mona's arm through her own, and leading her into the house. "Sit down and
rest a bit before you go up to see your room."

Exhausted with excitement, and talking, and the extra exertion, Lucy
herself had to sit down for a few minutes to get her breath. Mona, more
tired than she realised until she came to sit down, lay back in her
father's big chair and looked about her with shy interest. How familiar
it all seemed, yet how changed. Instead of the old torn, soiled drab
paper, the walls were covered with a pretty blue one, against which the
dresser and table and the old familiar china showed up spotless and
dainty; the steel on the stove might have been silver, the floor was as
clean and snowy as the table.

Mona's memory of it all was very different. In those days there had been
muddle, dust, grease everywhere, the grate was always greasy and choked
with ashes, the table sloppy and greasy, the floor unwashed, even unswept,
the dressers with more dust than anything else on them. Mona could
scarcely believe that the same place and things could look so different.

"Oh, how nice it all is," she said in a voice full of admiration, and Lucy
smiled with pleasure. She knew that many girls would not have admitted
any improvement even if they had seen it.

"Shall we go upstairs now?" she said. "I've got my breath again," and she
led the way