"And how many would she say--the like of her to the like of you! I suppose you think because your mother's sister is married on a Sir, that their ladyships are as common as gooseberries. Much your mother's sister has done for you--leaving you to take all sorts of maggots into your head! But I've no doubt you think a sight more of her than you do of me, for all the time you've been with me." This was the first time the Munros had been mentioned between the cousins, and Mona was not anxious to pursue the subject. "Your mother's sister married on a Sir." Oh, the sordidness of it! Mona had refused to see the Sahib again during his stay at the Towers, and although she could not for a moment regret her refusal, she was conscious of a distinct sense of emptiness in her life. There was no doubt that for the moment she had lost her friend; and perhaps things might never again be as they had been before his clumsy and lamentable mistake. But although he was lost to her directly, she was only now beginning to possess him through Doris. "He will see her constantly for the next two months," she thought, "and he cannot but love her. He loves her now, if he only knew it. It is absurd to suppose that he ever looked at me with that light in his eyes. He analyses me, and admires me deliberately, but Doris bowls him over. Whether she will care for him, is another question; but I am sure he at least possesses the prime merit in her eyes of being a Sir Galahad; and by the doctrine of averages, a magnificent son of Anak like that cannot be refused by two sensible women within the space of two months. He will consider himself bound to me of course, but he will fall in love with her all the faster for that; and at the appointed time he will duly present himself in much fear and trembling lest I should take him at his word. How amusing it will be!" And a cold little ray of sunshine stole across the chill grey mists of her life. That day Rachel's appetite failed for the first time. Her face was more flushed than usual, and her moist, flabby hands became dry and hot. In some uneasiness Mona produced her clinical thermometer, and found that her cousin's temperature had run up to 102°. "You are a little feverish, dear," she said lightly. "I don't think it is going to be anything serious, but it will be wise to go to bed and let me fetch the doctor. Shall I send Sally or go myself?" "Send Sally," was the prompt reply, "and let him find out for himself that I am feverish. Don't tell him anything about that machine of yours. He'd think it wasn't canny for the like of you." "I will do as you please, of course; but lots of people have thermometers now, who know no more of medicine--than that spoon. Not but what the spoon's experience of the subject has been both varied and profound!" she added, smiling, as she remembered Rachel's love for domestic therapeutica.