"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 dark-coloured 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 herself, but she was so busy. Sir Douglas was in high spirits. It really was true of him, what Lady Munro had graciously said of all of them, that Mona's going made the greatest difference in the pleasure of the tour. From the point of view of personal companionship he had long since exhausted his wife, and Evelyn was still too crude and insipid to be thought of in that capacity. To his peculiar, and possibly morbid, taste, Mona's society had all the piquancy which was as desirable to his mind as were Nubboo's curries to his jaded Anglo-Indian palate. It was sad work that packing. Many a bright hope and lofty ambition was buried with the books and instruments in the great wooden cases; and who could tell whether there would be any resurrection? Mona felt that another fortnight of life would bring her to the end of all things. "A world of failure and blighted enthusiasm behind," she said, "a wild waste of vulgarity and mediocrity in front; and here I stand for an instant poised on an 'agate knife-edge' of fashion and luxury and popularity. _Carpe diem_!"