"In Germany, I suppose. I went there for three years after I left school." "To study music?" "Both music and painting in a small way." "You wonderful girl! Then you are a musician?" "_Gott bewahre!_" burst from Mona involuntarily. "My musical friends thought me a Turner, and my artistic friends thought me a Rubinstein; from which you may gather the truth, that I had no real gift for either." "So you say! I expect you are an 'Admirable Crichton.'" "If that be a euphemism for 'Jack-of-all-trades and master of none,' I suppose I am--alas!" "And does Homer never nod? Do you never amuse yourself like other girls?" "I am afraid I must not allow you to call me a girl I believe you have my grandmother's Family Bible. Yes, indeed, Homer nods a great deal more than is consistent with his lofty calling. I am an epicure in frivolling." "In what?" "Forgive my school slang! It means that I indulge quite freely enough in concerts, theatres, and in picture-galleries--not to say shop-windows." "You don't mean to say that _you_ care for shop-windows?" and again Lady Munro's glance rested with satisfaction on Mona's pretty gown, although she was half afraid her niece was laughing at her. "Oh, don't I? You little know!" "Pictures, I suppose, and old china and furniture and that sort of thing," said Lady Munro, treading cautiously. "Yes, I like all those, but I like pretty bonnets too, and tea-gowns and laces and note-paper and--every kind of arrant frivolity and bagatelle. But they must be pretty, you know. I am not caught with absolute chaff." "You don't care about fashion, you mean." Mona drew down her brows in deep thought. Clearly she was talking honestly. Then she shook her head with a light laugh. "I am getting into deep water," she said. "I am afraid I do care about fashion, fashion _quâ_ fashion, fashion pure and simple." "Not if it is ugly?" questioned Evelyn gravely. "Not if it is ugly, surely; but I question if it often is ugly in the hands of the artists among dressmakers. It is just as unfair to judge of a fashion as it issues from the hands of a mere seamstress, as it is to judge of an air from its rendering on a barrel-organ or a penny trumpet." Lady Munro laughed. "I shall tell my husband that," she said. "Douglas"--as he entered the room--"you have no idea of the heresies Mona has been confessing. She cares as much about new gowns and bonnets as anybody." Sir Douglas looked at Mona very gravely. Either he had not heard the remark, or he was striving to adapt it to his mental sketch of her character. He seated himself on the sofa beside her, and turned towards her as though he meant to exclude his wife and daughter from the conversation. "Have you seriously taken up the study of medicine?" he asked. "Now for it!" thought Mona.