"I shall not forget it as long as I live. Edgar never knew what it was to have a mother; and it seems as if people understood by a kind of instinct how terribly unwilling I was to leave him without a sister." "_A propos_ of that," said Lucy, "Miss Maclean is a co-medallist with Dr Dudley." Miss Davidson raised wondering eyes. "You must be awfully clever," she said simply. "Oh no; I failed twice before I carried home the medal. Do you know Dr Dudley?" She scarcely even blushed as she asked the question. She was delighted at her own assurance and self-possession. The girl's beautiful face lighted up. "I should think I did," she said. "He has been the turning-point in my brother's life. There is no one in the world to whom I owe so much as to Ralph Dudley." A curious pain shot through Mona's heart. She had never experienced anything like it before, and it was gone before she could ask herself what it meant. A few minutes later she rose to go. "I am afraid it is taking a great liberty, with any one so busy and so clever," Miss Davidson said, in her pretty childlike fashion, "but I should be so proud if you would come and see me next Thursday. Miss Reynolds has promised to come, and I am expecting some of my very best friends." "I will come with pleasure," said Mona quickly; and this time a more perceptible colour rose into her white forehead. She wanted to see this beautiful girl again, and--it would be interesting to know whether "Ralph Dudley" was one of her "very best friends." That night as she sat by the open window in the twilight, looking out on the lime-trees in the garden, the same unaccountable pain came over her, and she proceeded to analyse it mercilessly. For a long time she remained there with a deep furrow on her brow. "I thought I had attained," she said at last. "Were they all for nothing, those years of striving after the highest, with strong crying and tears? I thought I had attained, and here I am, at the end of it, only a commonplace, jealous woman after all!" "Well," said Lucy the next day, "did I exaggerate? or is she as sweet and as pretty as they make 'em now-a-days?" "I think she is," Mona said reflectively. "But don't introduce her to other people as a 'sensuous beauty.' The word is misleading in that connection." "So I suppose. I used it in strict accordance with your own definition." "No doubt; but you will find that, on hearing it, the popular imagination flies at once to a Rubens' model." "I am so glad you promised to go and see her on Thursday. I was afraid you would not. When you were gone, I made her promise to ask Dr Dudley to meet us." "_Lucy!_" "Why not? I like him, and it must be most refreshing to him, after all the learned women he meets, to have this ignorant, beautiful creature look at him with great worshipping eyes." "And you don't mind her telling him that we wished to meet him?"