,
as he did very often, with having brought ruin on her, she'd say,
'Tom, I married you for better or worse, for richer or poorer. I didn't
marry you on condition you stayed always in one place and earned so much a
week.'"

"Mother didn't think she was being brave by always keeping a cheerful face
and a happy heart--but father did, and I do, now. I understand things
better than I did. I can see there's ever so much more bravery in denying
yourself day after day what you want, and bearing willingly what you don't
like, than there is in doing some big deed that you carry through on the
spur of the moment."

Mona sat silent, gazing out across the flowers in the window to the sky
beyond. "There's ever so much more bravery in denying yourself what you
want." The words rang in her head most annoyingly. Could Lucy have
spoken them on purpose? No, Mona honestly did not think that, but she
wished she had not uttered them. She tried to think of something else,
and, unconsciously, her mother helped her.

"I want to go to see mother on Monday or Tuesday, if I can. Do you think
you'll mind being left here alone for a few hours?"

Mona looked round at her with a smile. "Why, of course not! I used to
spend hours here alone. I'll find plenty to do while you're gone.
I'll write to granny, for one thing. I promised I would. I could take up
some of the weeds in the garden, too."

She was eager to do something for her stepmother, so that she herself
would feel more easy in her mind about the one thing she could not summon
up courage to do.

"Yes, if you'll do a little weeding it'll be fine. I'm ashamed to see our
path, and the wallflowers are nearly choked, but I daren't do it.
I can't stoop so long."

On Sunday Mona went to Sunday school for the first time, and was not a
little pleased to find that her last year's hat, with the daisy wreath,
was prettier than any other hat there. With every admiring glance she
caught directed at it her spirits rose. She loved to feel that she was
admired and envied. It never entered her head that she made some of the
children feel mortified and discontented with their own things.

"If they think such a lot of this one, I wonder what they'll think of me
having another new one soon!" To conceal the elation in her face,
she bent over her books, pretending to be absorbed in the lesson.
Miss Lester, the teacher, looked at her now and again with grave,
questioning eyes. She was won