"I almost envy you," she said. "It must be very pleasant to be able to shut one's eyes to abuses, and eat one's pudding in comfort." "Ay, or to shut one's eyes to one's father's shortcomings, and make the best of them." "It is not the shortcomings I object to, it is the false pretensions. Give me honesty at all costs. Let everything be open and above-board." "Honesty--honesty--honesty!" said Mona. "I sometimes think I hate honesty; it is so often another name for ingratitude and brutality. I care more for loyalty than for all the other virtues put together. It is the loyal souls who prepare the way for the reformer. His actual work is often nothing more than the magnificent thrust with which a child knocks down a castle of cards." "I believe in loyalty, too; but let us be loyal to the right, not loyal to the wrong." "With all my heart, if you can contrive to separate the right from the wrong. I never could. I am always brought back to that grand bold line-- 'Mit ihm zu irren ist dir Gewinn.' You don't believe that?" Miss Lascelles laughed, and shook her head. "I don't mean to go astray with anybody, if I can help it. I had no idea, Miss Maclean, that you were so desperately--_mediæval_." Mona smiled. "I think it is rather Greek than mediæval to shut one's eyes to abuses, and eat one's pudding in comfort. The mediæval spirit renounces the pudding, and looks beyond the abuses." Miss Lascelles sprang to her feet, and carelessly threw on her broad picturesque hat. "I am neither Greek nor mediæval, then," she said, involuntarily drawing up the sleeves from her plump pretty wrists as she spoke; "for I choose to share my pudding, and wage war to the death against the abuses." "_Brava!_" said Mona. "You are one of the sort that live in history." "For knocking down a castle of cards?" "Nay, nay; I did not say that of all reformers." "Well, Miss Maclean, whatever your theories may be, you have worked a grand reformation in Miss Reynolds." "Now that is precisely a case of the wrong man getting the credit. That, at least, was the work of her own loyal self." "If only she would be quite natural, and not treat the doctors with that half-coquettish air!" "But that is natural to her, and I can't say I altogether object to it. Perhaps I am partial. Here are the notes in the meantime." "Many thanks. Good-bye." "_Au revoir!_ Come back again--when you want another chapter out of the _Middle Ages_." Mona returned to her books, but she had not read a page before another visitor was announced. "I really shall have to sport my oak," she said; but when she took the card from the salver, her whole face beamed. "Show him in," she said, wheeling an arm-chair up to the fire. "Mr Reynolds, there are not three people in the world whom I should be so glad to see. What lucky wind blows you here now?"