"What do people do when they emigrate?" she went on. when the maid had gone. "They start off with tin pots and pans, but what do they do when they arrive? I wonder what sort of farmer I should make? There must be plenty of good old yeoman blood in my veins. 'Two men I honour and no third'--but the feminine of digging and delving, I suppose, is baking and mending. Heigh-ho! this can scarcely be checkmate at my time of life, but it looks uncommonly like it." An hour later she was deep in her accounts; the table before her littered with manuscript books and disjointed scraps of addition and subtraction. The furrow on her brow gradually deepened. "Shallow water!" she said at last, very slowly, raising her head and folding her arms as she spoke; "shallow water was a euphemism. It seems to me, my dear Lucy, that your friend is on the rocks." She sat for a long time in silence, and then ran her eye quickly over a pile of unanswered letters. She extracted one, leaned back in her chair, and looked at the envelope critically. "Not strictly what one would call a gentlewoman's letter," she said; "in fact, a sneering outsider might be tempted to use the word illiterate. Well, what then?" She took out the enclosure and read it through very carefully. She had tossed it aside thoughtlessly enough when it had found her, a fortnight before, in all the excitement of the examination; but now the utterances of the Delphic oracle could not have been studied with closer attention. "MY DEAR COUSIN,--Yours safely to hand this morning, and very glad I was to get it. I am afraid you will find us dull company here after London, but we will do our best." ("H'm," said Mona. "That means tea-parties--cookies and shortbread--a flower-show or two in the grounds of the Towers, no doubt,--possibly even a _soirée_ in the chapel. Wild excitement!") "Nobody here knows anything about your meaning to be a doctor, and what we don't know does us no harm. They would think it a queer kind of notion in these parts, as you know I do myself, and keep hoping you will find some nice gentleman----" ("_Gentleman!_" groaned Mona.) "----who will put the idea out of your head. My niece, who has been living with me for years, has just sailed for America to be married. You are almost the only friend I have now in the country, and I wish you could see your way to staying with me till you get married yourself. It would do no harm to save your own money a bit; your company would be gain enough to me. I must look out for some one at once, and it would make a great difference in my life to have you. Blood's thicker than water, you know." ("That I don't," said Mona. "My dear woman, any chance advertiser in to-day's paper would probably suit you better than I. It is as bad as adopting a foundling.") "Write me a line when to expect you. "Your affectionate cousin, "RACHEL SIMPSON."