She was unconscious that her whole manner and bearing had changed in the last quarter of an hour, but he felt it keenly, and guessed something of what had happened. "Miss Maclean," he said hoarsely, grasping the hand she tried to withdraw, "what do we want with one of them in our walks? Come with me. Come up-stairs with me now, and we'll tell them----" "I have stayed too long already," said Mona hastily; "good-bye." And without trusting herself to look at him again, she hurried away. Her cheeks were very bright, and her eyes suffused with tears, as she continued her walk. "How disgraceful!" she kept repeating; "how disgraceful! I must have been horribly to blame, or it never would have come to this." But, as usual, before long her sense of the comic came to her rescue. "Verily, my dear," she said, with a heavy sigh, "the study of the _Algæ_ and _Fungi_ is a large one, and leads us further than we anticipated." Auntie Bell would not have been the shrewd woman she was, if she had not seen at a glance that something was wrong with her darling; but she showed her sympathy by hastily "masking the tea," and cutting great slices from a home-made cake. "Eh, but ye're a sicht for sair een!" she said, as she bustled in and out of the sitting-room. "I declare ye're bonnier than iver i' that fur thing. Weel, hoo's a' wi' ye?" "Oh, I am blooming, as you see. Rachel is well, too." "An' what w'y suld she no' be weel? She's no' i' the w'y o' daein' onything that's like to mak' her ill, I fancy, eh? Hae ye been efter the butterflies again wi' Maister Broon?" The unexpected question brought the tell-tale colour to Mona's cheek. "No," she said, "I am not going any more. It is not the weather for that sort of thing." "Na," said Auntie Bell tersely; "nor he isna the mon for that sort o' thing. He's a guid mon, nae doot, an' a cliver, they say, for a' he's sae quite an' sae canny, an' sae ta'en up wi's beasts and things; but he's no' the mon for the like o' you. Ye wadna tak' him, Mona?" "Dear Auntie Bell," said Mona abashed, "such a thing never even occurred to me----" She did not add "until," but her honest face said it for her. "He's no' been askin' ye?" "No, no," said Mona warmly, "and he never will. Can a man and woman not go 'after the butterflies,' as you call it, without thinking of love and marriage?" Auntie Bell's face was worth looking at. "I nae ken," she said grimly; "I hae ma doots." "Well, I assure you Mr Brown has not even mentioned such a thing to me." Auntie Bell eyed her keenly through the gold spectacles, but Mona did not flinch. "Then his sisters have," thought the old woman shrewdly. "I'll gie them a piece o' ma mind the neist time I'm doun the toun." Mona's visits were necessarily very short on these winter afternoons, and as soon as tea was over she rose to go. "Are ye aye minded tae gang hame come Mairch?" said Auntie Bell. "Oh yes, I cannot possibly stay longer." "What's to come o' the shop?"