His next remark sounded curiously irrelevant.

"How long do you remain here?"

"In London? I don't quite know. I am going to visit a cousin in ten days or so."

Sir Douglas took advantage of a pause in the conversation between his wife and their visitor.

"Bruce," he said, "let me introduce you to my niece, Miss Maclean."

"That," he continued to his wife, with a movement of his head in Mona's direction, "is a great medical light."

Mona laughed.

"I am sure of it," said Lady Munro, with her irresistible smile. "As for me, I would as soon have a woman doctor as a man."

Sir Douglas threw back his head and clapped his hands, with a harsh laugh.

"Well," he said, "when you come to say that-the skies will fall."

"Douglas, what do you mean?" She looked annoyed. At the moment she really believed that she had been an advocate of women doctors all her life. Sir Douglas seated himself on a low chair beside her, and began to play with her embroidery silks.

When Mona rose to go, a little later, Lady Munro took her hand affectionately.

'Mona," she said, "I told you we were starting on Monday morning for a short tour in Norway. My husband and I should be so pleased if you would go with us."

Mona's cheek flushed. "How very kind!" she said. "I am so sorry it is impossible."

"Why?" said Sir Douglas quickly. "You don't need to go to your cousin till the end of the month."

Mona's colour deepened. about the bush," she said.

"There is no use in beating "The fact is, I am engaged in the interesting occupation of retrenching just now. You know"-as Sir Douglas looked daggers-"I have not the smallest claim on you."

He laughed, and laid his hand on her shoulder.

"Don't be afraid, Mona," he said. "We are not trying to establish a claim on you. The great medical light shall continue her way as heretofore, without let or hindrance. Give us your society for a fortnight, and we shall be only too much your debtors."

"It will make the greatest difference to all of us!" said Lady Munro cordially.

And Evelyn, with the facile friendship of a schoolgirl, slipped her arm caressingly round her cousin's waist. And so it was arranged.

"Shall Nubboo call you a hansom," said Lady Munro.

"She doesn't want a hansom," said Sir Douglas. "Throw your gown over your arm, and put on a cloak, and I will see you home."

It was a beautiful summer night; the air was soft and pleasant after the burning heat of the day.

It was natural that Sir Douglas should be curious to see the habitat of his new beetle, and after all, he was practically her uncle; but when they reached her door she held. out her hand with a frank smile.

"You have been very kind to me," she said. night."

"Good

"I am afraid Lucy would say I had not 'stood up' to him enough," she thought. "But all he wanted was to dissect me, and I hope he has done it satisfactorily. What a curious man he is! I wonder if any one ever took quite that view of the subject before? Not at all the view of a Sir Galahad, I fancy "-and she thought of a passage that had puzzled her in Rhoda Fleming-"but he was kind to me, and honest with me, and I like him. I must try very hard not to become unconsciously 'blunted' as he calls it."

Her eye fell on a letter from her cousin, and she sat down in her rocking-chair, cast a regretful glance at the withered maidenhairs on her shoulder, and tore open the envelope.

"MY DEAR COUSIN,-Your letter has just come in, and

very good news it is. All the world looks brighter since I read it. I will do my best to make you happy, and although you will have plenty of time to yourself, you will be of the greatest use to me. Both in the house and in the shop"

"Good God!" said Mona; and letting the letter fall, she buried her face in her hands.

CHAPTER V.

"AN AGATE KNIFE-EDGE."

It is doubtful whether Mona had ever received such a shock in the whole course of her life.

She had always been told, and she had gloried in the knowledge, that her father's father was a self-made man; but the very fact that she did thus glory was a proof, perhaps in more ways than one, that the process of "making had been a very complete one. She vaguely knew, but she did not in the least realise, what people may be before they are "made." She had taken for granted, as she told Lucy, that her cousin Rachel was "not exactly what one would call a lady;" but she had unconsciously pictured to herself a pretty cottage embowered in roses, a simple primitive life, early dinners, occasional afternoon calls, rare tea-parties, and abundant leisure for walking, reading, thinking, and dreaming on the rocks. Her love for the sea, and especially for the wild east coast, amounted almost to a passion, which hitherto she had had but little opportunity of gratifying; and this love, perhaps, had weighed with her as much as anything else, in the decision she had made.

She had talked with pride of the "good old yeoman

blood" in her veins, but principle and dainty nurture shrank alike from the idea of the middleman—the shop.

She did not dream of withdrawing from the rashly concluded bargain. That simple way out of the difficulty never suggested itself to her mind. "After all, could I have done any better?" she said. "Even if Sir Douglas and my aunt took more than a passing interest in me, should I be content to devote my life to them? Nay, verily!" But all her philosophy could not save her from a mauvais quart d'heure -nor from a restless wakeful night-after she had read the letter.

And yet the situation appealed irresistibly to her sense of humour.

"If only Lucy were here to enjoy it!" she said. And she found the necessary relief to her feelings in a long letter to her friend.

"I can see you turn pale at the word shop," she wrote, "as I confess I did myself; but I suppose your youthful and untrammelled imagination has taken flight at once to Parkins & Gotto or Marshall & Snelgrove. My dear, let me inform you at once that the town contains less than two thousand inhabitants; and now, will you kindly reflect on the number of cubic feet which the Parkins & Gotto and Marshall & Snelgrove of such a place would find ample for the bestowal of their wares. My own impression is, that my sitting-room would afford sufficient accommodation for both, and I am not sure that there would not be room for Fortnum & Mason to boot.

"If I only knew what I am to sell, it would be some relief. Tobacco was my first thought, but the place is not big enough to support a tobacconist. At whisky I draw the line-and yet, on second thoughts, I don't. If it is tobacco or whisky-behold my life-work! But if it is toffee and ginger-bread horses, and those ghastly blue balls-what are they for, by the way-may the Lord have mercy upon my soul!"

She mentioned her meeting with the Munros, and the projected trip to Norway, and then

"I hope the grocer duly congratulated you over the counter," she concluded. "I take a fraternal interest in his behaviour now, and with characteristic catholicity I have gone further afield, and have imagined the very words in which the postman delivered his tit-bit of information. I have even pictured the farmers forgetting the price of hay, and the state of the crops, in the all-absorbing topic of the hour.

"Your affectionate friend,

"MONA MACLEAN."

"And now,” she said to herself, as she surveyed the alarming array of trunks and packing-cases which the servants had placed in the room,-"now I am in the position commonly described as having my work cut out for me! The valise must do for Norway, that trunk and hat-box for Borrowness, and all the rest must be warehoused at Tilbury's."

The consideration of her wardrobe provided food for some reflection and a good deal of amusement.

"Pity there is no time to write to the Queen for information as to outfit desirable for six months in a small shop at Borrowness!" she thought.

Finally, she decided on a plain tailor-made tweed, a darkcoloured silk, a couple of pretty cotton morning-gowns, and a simple evening-dress, "in case of emergency," she said, but she knew in her heart that no such emergency would arise.

"The good folks will think those sweetly simple, and befitting the state of life to which it has pleased Providence to call me," she said. "They would stare a little if they knew what I had paid for them, I fancy. Borrowness 'versteht so was nicht,' as my dear old Frau used to say of Pauline and the asparagus."

In the midst of her work Sir Douglas and Evelyn came in on some mythical errand. Lady Munro would have come