"The mater's ready to kiss your boots," he returned. "I never saw anything so quick as the way you snatched old Dolly." All good things come to an end some time, even holidays, and one morning towards the end of January witnessed a taxi at the door, and various bags and packages, labelled Llangarmon Junction, stowed inside. "I don't know how to thank you. I haven't any words," gulped Rona, as she hugged "Motherkins" good-bye. "Do your best at school, and remember certain little things we talked about," whispered Mrs. Stanton, kissing her. "We shall expect to see you here again." CHAPTER VIII The "Stunt" The general verdict on Rona, when she arrived back at The Woodlands, was that she was wonderfully improved. "It isn't only her dresses," said Gertrude Oliver, "though she looks a different girl in her new clothes; her whole style's altered. She used to be so fearfully loud. She's really toned down in the most amazing fashion. I couldn't have believed it possible." "I'm afraid it's only a veneer," declared Stephanie, with a slighting little laugh. "You'll find plenty of raw backwoods underneath, ready to crop up when she's off her guard. You should have heard her this morning." "And she broke an ink-bottle," added Beth Broadway. "Well, she's not perfect yet, of course, but I stick to it that she's improved." "Oh, I dare say! But Ulyth's welcome to keep her cub. She'll always be more or less of a trial. What else can you expect? 'What's bred in the bone will come out!'" "Yes, I'm a great believer in heredity," urged Beth, taking up the cudgels for her chum. "If you have ancestors it gives you a decided pull." "Everybody has ancestors, you goose," corrected Gertrude. "Well, of course I mean aristocratic ones. The others don't count. It must make a difference whether your grandfather was a gentleman or a farm-boy. Rona says herself she's a democrat. I'm sure she looked the part when she arrived." "I don't know that she exactly looks it now, though," said Gertrude, championing Rona for once. Everyone at the school realized that the Cuckoo was trying to behave herself. The struggles towards perfection were sometimes almost pathetic, though the girls mostly viewed them from the humorous side. She would sit up suddenly, bolt upright, at the tea table, if Miss Bowes' eye suggested that she was lolling; she apologized for accidents at which she had laughed before, and she corrected herself if a backwoods expression escaped her. "Am I really any shakes smarter--I mean, more toned up--than I was?" she asked Ulyth anxiously. "You're far better than you were last term. Do go on trying, that's all!" "Will they take me as a candidate in the Camp-fire League?" "I expect so, but we shall have to ask Mrs. Arnold about that."