"Nobody axed me, sir, she said.' At least nobody that I call anybody."

"If you would go out to India, somebody would ask you every week of your life."

"Thanks. Even that is not absolutely my ideal of blessedness."

"But you don't want to be an old maid?"

"That expression is never heard now outside the walls of a ladies' boarding-school," said Mona severely. "Oh, my dear, at the romantic age of seventeen you cannot even imagine how much I prize my liberty; how many plans I have in my head that no married woman could carry out. It seems to me that the unmarried woman is distinctly having her innings just now. She has all the advantages of being a woman, and most of the advantages of being a man. I don't see how it can last. Let her make hay while the sun shines.

'Ergreife die Gelegenheit! Sie kehret niemals wieder.'"

“Well, I know I should be very disappointed, if I thought I should never have little children of my own."

"O Maternity, what crimes are perpetrated in thy name! Mothering is woman's work without a doubt, but she does not need to have children of her own in order to do it. You dear little soul! Never mind me. I wish you as many as you will wish for yourself when the time comes, and a sweet little mother they will have!"

Ꭰ

CHAPTER VIIL

BONS CAMARADES.

"Nonsense!"

"Fact, my dear fellow! I knew it before I knew her, or I simply should never have believed it. It's an awful shock to one's theories, don't you know?—one's views of womanliness and all that sort of thing. I have thought about it till I am tired, and I can't make it out; but upon my soul, Dickinson, you may say what you like, the girl's a brick.” "I'm quite sure of that already, and I'm sure she's clever enough for anything."

"Oh-clever, yes! But clever women don't need tobut there! I can't go into all that again. I simply give the subject up. Don't mention it to me again."

"But you know I am a staunch believer in women doctors. When my sister was so ill, the doctor at the station said she would be an invalid for life, and a staff surgeon who was passing through said the same. As a last resource I got a woman doctor to come a hundred miles to see her, and she brought Lena round in a few weeks. She knew her business, but she was very different from Miss Maclean."

"Wasn't she? That's just it! Oh, I know they're a necessary evil. I should like to see a man doctor look at my Evelyn, except for a sore throat or a cut finger! I have always upheld the principle, in spite of the sacrifice involved; but how could I tell that any of my own womankind would take it up? You see, she was left so much to her own resources, poor child! There was no one to warn her of what it all meant. I reproach myself now for not having looked after her more; but how on earth could I know that she was going to turn out anything in particular? Gad! Dickinson, when I think of all that girl must know, it makes me sick-sick; but when I am speaking to her

upon my soul, I don't believe it has done her a bit of harm!"

The entrance of Mona and Evelyn into the sunny breakfast-room interrupted the conversation for a moment, and it was presently resumed in a lighter and more frivolous vein over the trout and the coffee.

"Oh, trout, yes!" said Sir Douglas. "I never said anything against the trout. If it were not for that, we should all be reduced to skin and bone. Evelyn, where is your mother?"

It was eight o'clock, and the calesch stood at the door, when Lady Munro appeared, serene and smiling; and then Evelyn and Mona had to hurry away and pack her valise for her.

"You know I've been up for hours," she said, with a charming nod to the Sahib, as she seated herself at the table, "but I began to write some letters--"

"Humph!" said Sir Douglas, and shrugging his shoulders, he abruptly left the room,

When the tardy valise was at last roped on to the calesch, and the portier was opening the door, the young Norwegian landlady came up shyly to Lady Munro.

"Will you haf?" she said in her pretty broken English, holding out a large photograph of the hotel, with its staff on the doorstep.

Never had Lady Munro smiled more sweetly.

"Is that really for me? How very kind! I cannot tell you how much I shall prize it as a memento of a charming visit. Why, I can recognise all of you!" and she looked round at the worshipping servants.

A minute later they drove off in state, with Nubboo enthroned on the box in front, and Dickinson Sahib following on in a kariol behind.

Not a trace of mist

It was a glorious summer morning. or cloud lingered about the hillsides; the Nærodal was once more asleep in sunshine and shadow.

"Well, I am sure we shall not soon forget Stalheim," said Lady Munro. "It has been quite a new experience."

"Quite," agreed Sir Douglas. "It has been an absolutely new experience to me to see a hard-worked horse go up a hen's ladder to bed, with only a bundle of hay for supper, and never a touch from his groom. It is astonishing what plucky little beasts they are in spite of it."

"Now don't enjoy the scenery too much," said the Sahib, driving up alongside. "You have been over this ground before, and human nature cannot go on enjoying keenly all day long. Save yourselves for the afternoon. The drive from Voss to Eide is one of the finest things in Norway."

And so it proved. For the first few miles after they left Vossevangen, they drove through pine-woods and dripping cliffs, where every tiny ledge had its own tuft of luxuriant mosses; and then suddenly, at full speed, they began the descent to the sea-level.

"How dreadfully dangerous !" exclaimed Lady Munro. "As good as a switchback," laughed Evelyn.

"What engineers those fellows must be!" said Sir Douglas admiringly, as every turn brought them in sight of the two great waterfalls, and their faces were drenched with spray.

"It is like going round and round the inside of a mighty chalice," said Mona.

And so it was; but the sides of the chalice were one living mass of the most glorious green, almost every square yard of which would have made a picture by itself.

When they reached the bottom, the driver suddenly dismounted, and proceeded to occupy himself with a piece of string and the weather-beaten straps that did duty for

traces.

"Harness-broke!" he said calmly.

"The deuce it has!" exclaimed Sir Douglas. "I think you might have found that out at the top of the hill. Do you suppose our necks are of no more value than your own? Nubboo, just see that it is all right now."

"How horrible!" and Lady Munro shuddered.

Nubboo delivered a lengthy report in his native language, and Sir Douglas shrugged his shoulders resignedly.

"We must just chance it," he said. "I daresay it will be all right."

"How horrible !" repeated Lady Munro.

But they reached Eide without further accident, although rain fell steadily during the last hour of the drive.

It is the pleasant and primitive practice at Eide, especially in rainy weather, for the visitors to assemble in the large entrance-hall and verandah to watch the arrival of

new-comers.

"If the show had been got up expressly for their benefit, and they had duly paid for their seats, they could not stare more frankly, could they?" laughed the Sahib, as he helped the ladies out of the calesch. "There is not an atom of con

cealment about it."

"Great privilege for us, upon my soul, to afford so much. entertainment!" growled Sir Douglas.

"Won't you come for a turn in the garden before you go up-stairs?" the Sahib asked Mona, when the question of rooms had been settled. "We have five minutes to spare before supper, and there is a fine view of the fjord."

"But alack! what a change after dear, rugged old Stalheim!" she said, as they strolled down to the water's edge. "This might almost be an Interlaken garden."

"Quite tropical, isn't it? But look at the fjord!"

It spread out before them in a soft, hazy golden light, and the tiny waves broke gently on the steps at their feet.

Mona's face kindled. She did not think it necessary to speak.

"And yet," she said a minute later, "it is a cruel fjord. It is going to take us back to civilisation again." And then she could scarcely repress a laugh. Civilisation, indeed! Civilisation in a small shop at Borrowness!

He looked at her quickly. Did she repent of the life-work she had chosen ?

"In the stores of your knowledge," he asked presently, his eyes on the hills, "do you include geology?"

"Among the rags and tags of my information," she re