They had had some very rough weather, but now the sea was like a mill-pond, and the whole party was sitting on deck under an awning. "Well, Mona dear," said Lady Munro, "I am sure I don't know how we are to say good-bye to you." "_Don't!_" entreated Mona. "You make me feel that I must find words in which to thank you, and indeed I can't!" Her sensitive lips quivered, and Sir Douglas uttered a sympathetic grunt. "You really must spend a month with us on the Riviera at Christmas," went on her aunt. "We will take no refusal." "_Do!_" said Evelyn, putting her arm round her cousin's waist. "Thank you very much," and Mona's eyes looked eloquent thanks; "but it is quite out of the question." "I have put my hand to the plough," she thought, "and I don't mean to look back. Six months it shall be, at the very least." "And what is a month," growled Sir Douglas, "when we want her altogether! I am afraid I promised that her incomings and outgoings should be without let or hindrance as heretofore--old fool that I was!--but how could I tell how indispensable she was going to make herself?" "I wish you would not talk so," said Mona. "I have never in all my life been so disgracefully spoilt as during the last fortnight. I should get simply unbearable if I lived with you much longer." "The fact is," continued Sir Douglas, looking at his wife, "the greatest mistake of our married life has been that Mona did not come to us ten years ago, when your mother died." "I don't fancy Mona thinks so," said Lady Munro, smiling at her niece. "No," said Mona, and the slight flush on her cheek showed that her frankness cost her an effort. "It is good for a man to bear the yoke in his youth. If I had not known hardship sometimes, and loneliness often, I could not have appreciated as I have done the infinite enjoyment of the last fortnight." "The fact is, you bear the yoke a deal too much," said her uncle. "Bless my soul! you're only a girl yet, and you can only be young once. And now you are going to mope, mope, mope, over your books." "You know I am going to my cousin in the first instance." "Yes--for a few weeks, I suppose! By the way, can't you get out of that? I am sure we want you a great deal more than she does." "Oh no," said Mona hastily. "I can't get out of that even if I wished to." "If you were cut out for a common drudge, I should not mind," he went on; "but with your gifts---- Do you know, there is nothing to hinder your being a great social success?" "Oh, indeed there is!" exclaimed Mona. "You have made me very happy, and I have shown my gratitude by forgetting my own existence, and talking a great deal too much. But when my friends want to show me off, and beg me to talk--with the best will in the world, I seem unable to utter a word." "No wonder, when you live the life of a hermit. But if you gave your mind to it----"