But, alas! a rude stare, without a trace of recognition in it, from the object of her solicitude, with whom she came suddenly face to face as she turned a corner, and upon whom she bestowed a radiant smile, and cordial "How do you do, Lily?" sent her on the rest of her way with a small cloud in her hitherto cloudless sky, and a nasty little feeling of wounded pride endeavoured to make itself felt. However, she consoled herself with the thought that Lily would soon have cause to think differently of her, and hastened to the place where she had promised to wait for the carriage. But, unfortunately, it was just the other way round! The carriage, with Mrs. Beauchamp in it, had been waiting some time for Monica, and her grandmother greeted her with words of displeasure. "I am very much annoyed, Monica; you are fifteen or twenty minutes behind time," she said severely. "Richards has been driving up and down, up and down, all that time, lest the horses should take cold; they were so very warm. It was very thoughtless indeed of you, to keep me waiting like this." "I am very sorry, grannie," was all Monica said, as she seated herself beside her grandmother in the landau; and it spoke volumes for her that her voice was gentle, and her look penitent. Monica of old would not have answered thus, and Mrs. Beauchamp knew it, and thoroughly appreciated the change, although she said nothing. Indeed, silence reigned during the drive, and it was not until they were in the drawing-room after dinner that Mrs. Beauchamp enquired the result of Monica’s visit. "You might as well write to Miss Buckingham this evening, if you are still anxious to do so," she said, when she had heard what Mrs. Howell said; "there is no time to spare, as the letter will have to be forwarded to wherever she is spending her holidays." And Monica gladly fetched her writing-case, and began to write what proved to be a very difficult epistle. Her pen had to be nibbled thoughtfully many times before the letter was accomplished, and then the result was not all that the writer could wish. She was rather afraid that Mrs. Beauchamp would ask to see it before it went; but, fortunately, just as Monica had signed her name, in school-girl calligraphy, at the end of perhaps the most tidy letter she had ever written, the old lady roused up from the little doze in which she had been indulging, and bade Monica hasten, or she would lose the post. "I have just finished, grannie," and as Monica laid down her pen, Harriet came to say that Richards was waiting for the letters. "Have you any to send to-night, grannie? No? Then there is only this one, Harriet," and Monica breathed a sigh of relief as she shut up her writing-case and prepared to read to her grandmother.