"The Fates have apparently decreed," she said, "that you are to see _this_ sketch," and she held it out to him. It represented a red-cheeked, sonsy-faced girl, standing before a mirror, trying on a plain little bonnet. On all sides were suggestions of flowers and feathers, and brilliant millinery; and in the girl's round eyes was an expression of positive horror. Beneath the picture Mona had written, "Is life worth living?" Dudley laughed. "That looks as if there ought to be a story connected with it," he said. "Only a bit of one," and she gave him a somewhat cynical account of her little scullery-maid. "I withdraw my remark," he said gravely. "You are not throwing yourself away. Would that we were all using ourselves to as much purpose!" "Don't make me feel myself more of a fool than I do already." "Fool! I was wishing there were a few more fools in the place to appreciate you--Ruskin for one!" "I did try to comfort myself with recollections of Ruskin," she said, with a suspicion of tears in her laughter; "but I could only think of the bit about the crossing-sweeper and the hat with the feather." He smiled. "You do Ruskin too much honour when you judge him by an isolated quotation," he said. "I thought that distinction was reserved for the Bible." "But that is only the beginning of the story," said Mona. "I have had several orders since for similar bonnets--more from the mothers than from the girls themselves, I am sorry to say,--and among them the one that suggested the sketch. Have you ever seen Colonel Lawrence's quaint old housekeeper up at the wood?" "Oh yes. Everybody knows the Colonel's Jenny." "Her daughter went away to service some time ago, and came home to visit her mother the other day, with all her wages on her back, as Jenny expressed it,--such a poor, little, rosy-cheeked, tawdry bit of humanity! The mother marched her off to me in high dudgeon, and ordered a bonnet 'like Polly's at the Towers'; and that is exactly how the poor child looked when she tried it on. I could have found it in my heart to beg her off myself. Talk of breaking in a butterfly!" "Yes," he said. "One is inclined to think that human butterflies should be allowed to be butterflies--till one sees them too near the candle!" "If we knew whether it were really worth while trying to save them," said Mona, "I suppose we should indeed 'know what God and man is'; as it is, we can only act on impulse. But this little Maggie does not belong to the most puzzling class. She is a good little thing, after all. I should not wonder if she had the germ of a soul stowed away somewhere." "She is a Maggie, is she?" he said, returning with a smile to the baby-face in the picture. "They are all Maggies here. One gets perfectly sick of the name." "Does one?" said Mona. "Queen Margaret is a heroine of mine, and my very own saint to boot."