Mona laughed. "I was going to say, like the Irishman, that I did not know, because I had never tried," she said; "but I do trim my own summer hats. I should enjoy it immensely." "And it will go hard with me," she added to herself, "but I shall eclipse those productions in the window." "I am afraid," said Rachel uneasily, "we could not sell plain things like you had on. It was very nice and useful and that, of course, but they are all for the feathers and flowers here." "Oh, I should not attempt a hat like mine. It takes genius to do a really simple thing, don't you think so?" Rachel laughed, uncertain whether to take the remark in jest or earnest. "Well, you know," she said doubtfully, "it is easier to cover a hat up like." "Very much," agreed Mona. "And now you must make a good tea, for I am sure you are hungry after the journey. That's ham and eggs in front of you, and this is hot buttered toast,--only plain food, you see. I have made your tea nice and strong; it will do you more good." "Farewell, sleep!" thought Mona, as she surveyed the prospect before her; and it occurred to her that the sound of champagne, creaming into a shallow glass, was one of the most delightful things on earth. She blushed violently when her cousin said a moment later-- "I suppose you are blue-ribbon? Everybody nearly is now-a-days. It is wonderful how many of the gentry have stopped having wine on their tables. Nobody needs to have it now. The one thing is as genteel as the other, and it makes a great difference to the purse." "Doesn't it?" said Mona sympathetically, thankful that no answer had been required to the original question. "And after all," she thought, "when I am living a life like that of the cabbages at the back, what do I want with the 'care-breaking luxury'?" "I hope you don't object to the shop," Rachel went on presently, _à propos_ apparently of the idea of gentility. "I don't really need it now, and it never did very much in the way of business at the best; but I have got used to the people dropping in, and I would miss it. And you knew the ladies, the minister's wife and the doctor's wife like, they come in sometimes and have a cup of tea with me: they don't think me any the less genteel for keeping a shop. But I always tell everybody that it is not that I require to do it. Everybody in Borrowness knows that, and of course it makes a difference." "The question of 'gentility,'" said Mona, with a comical and saving recollection of Lucy's letter, "seems to me to depend entirely on who does a thing, and the spirit in which it is done, not on the thing itself." "That is just it. They all know me, you see, and they know I am not really caring about the shop at all. Why, they can see that whiles I lock the door behind me and go away for a whole day together." Mona bit her lip and did not attempt an answer this time.