"No, I am not; I like to tell you. Mona, I woke at two in the morning with these words in my mind, 'The sufferings of the damned.' Don't call me irreverent. You don't know what it is. It took me _three-quarters of an hour_ to get out of bed to knock for Marion, and the tears were running down my face like rain." "My poor baby!" Mona got up and knelt down beside her; but Lucy was already laughing at the next recollection. "Oh, Mona, I did not see the comedy of it then, but I shall never forget that sight. The glimmering candle--Marion shivering in her night-dress, her sleepy eyes blinking as she read from a medical book, 'Rheumatism is probably due to excess of sarcolactic acid in the blood'! as if I was not far past caring what it was due to! Good old Marion! she dressed herself at once, and at six she went for Dr Bateson. Of course with the dawn the pain just came within the limits of endurance; but when the doctor gave me morphia, I could have fallen down and worshipped her." "You poor little girl! How I wish I had been here! Let me go, dear, a minute. It is time for your medicine.' "Nasty bitter-sweet stuff--I wish I could stop _that_!" "Why? I am sure it has worked wonders. How I wish we knew exactly how it acts!" Lucy laughed. "You are as bad as Marion," she said. "If you were on the rack, you would not trouble yourself to understand the mechanism that stopped the wheels, so long as they were stopped. I leave it to you, dear, to cultivate the infant bacillus on a nice little nutrient jelly, and then polish him off with a dilute solution of salicin." "What we want now," said Mona meditatively, stroking the curly red hair, "is to get back our baby face. How do we mean to set about it?" Lucy made a little _moue_. "Dr Bateson said something about the south of France--such a waste of time! And Father says when I come back to London I am to live at the College Hall again." "I am very glad to hear it. I always thought your leaving was a great mistake." "Why, you lived in rooms yourself!" "Oh, _I_! I am an old granny full of fads, and quite able to take care of myself." "Your best friend could not deny that you are full of fads; and that reminds me, Mona, it is your innings now. I am 'clagging' to hear all about Borrowness, and the shop and your cousin. Your last letter fell very flat on expectant spirits." Mona went leisurely back to her chair. "You see, dear," she said, "I am in rather a difficult position. It would be very amusing to give you a piquant account of my doings; but I went to Borrowness of my own free will, and even an unvarnished story of my life there would be disloyal to my cousin. Borrowness is not a pretty place. The country is flat, but the coast is simply glorious. The rocks----" "Thanks--I don't mind taking the rocks for granted. I want to hear about your cousin and the shop."