"Ay," said the man, without touching his cap. Rachel Simpson was one of the many lower middle-class people in Scotland who talk fairly good English to their equals and superiors, but who, in addressing their inferiors, relapse at once into the vernacular. Mona greatly admired the pure native Scotch, and had looked forward to hearing it spoken; but her cousin's tone and accent, as she addressed this man, jarred on her almost unbearably. Mona was striving hard, too, to blot out a mental picture of Lady Munro, as she stood on the platform at Newcastle, giving an order with queenly graciousness to the obsequious porter. The two cousins walked home together. The road was very wet with recent rain, and they had to pick their steps in a way that was not conducive to conversation; but they talked eagerly about the weather, the crops, the crossing to Burntisland, and everything else that was most uninteresting. Mona had never mentioned the Munros nor her visit to Norway. In about five minutes they reached the house, and indeed it was not such a bad little house after all, opening, as it did, on a tiny, well-kept garden. The two windows on the ground-floor had of course been sacrificed to the exigencies of the "shop"; and as they went in, Mona caught a glimpse of some extraordinary hats and bonnets in one window, and of dusty stationery and sundry small wares in the other. "Marshall & Snelgrove and Parkins & Gotto," she said to herself judicially, "and I suppose Fortnum & Mason, are represented by those two wooden boxes of sweetmeats beside the blotting-books." As they opened the glass door, the automatic shop-bell rang sharply, and an untidy girl looked out from the kitchen. "It's you," she said briefly, and disappeared again. Rachel Simpson would never have dreamt of giving a domestic order in the hearing of a visitor, so she went into the kitchen, and a whispered conversation took place while Mona waited in the passage. The old-fashioned clock ticked loudly, and the air was close and redolent of rose-leaves and mustiness. Evidently open windows were the exception here, not the rule. The house seemed curiously far away from the beach, too, considering how small the town was. "If I can only catch a glimpse of the sea from my bedroom window," thought Mona, "I shall be happy in a garret." But it was no garret to which her cousin presently conducted her, nor, alas! did it command a view of the sea. It was a fair-sized room above the kitchen--a room filled up with ugly, old-fashioned furniture--and its window overlooked a wide prospect of cabbage-beds. "Just come into the front parlour when you get off your things," said Rachel, "and we'll have a cup of tea." "Thank you," said Mona pleasantly, and she was left alone. She seated herself absently on a chair, and then sprang suddenly to her feet again. "Well, you don't suppose you are going to take stock now," she said to herself savagely. "Wash your hands, and be quick about it!"