A week elapsed before any reply came to Monica’s letter, and she began to be afraid that Miss Buckingham would not make known her decision before it was too late, for the school reopened in another few days. However, one morning, the long-looked-for letter arrived, and the girl’s heart was overjoyed when she found that her request had been granted, and that Lily Howell would be allowed to re-attend the school if she wrote an apology for her past conduct, and sent it to the head-mistress without delay. Miss Buckingham added that it had been a matter of regret with her, that one of her scholars should have had to leave the school under such circumstances, so that if Lily were really penitent, the past should be overlooked; more especially as the girl she had endeavoured to injure had taken upon herself the task of interceding for her. "I wish she hadn’t put that last bit in," mused Monica, "because that will very likely offend Lily more than ever, because she will hate to think she owes anything to me. However, I can’t help that; I have done what seemed right, and I must just leave the result, and I am dreadfully afraid she won’t apologise. Well, I’ll do as grannie suggests--just send Miss Buckingham’s letter to Mrs. Howell, and then wait to see what happens." A little note, badly expressed and ill-spelt, but breathing gratitude in every line, from Mrs. Howell, was all that Monica received, and in it there was only a hope expressed that Lily would send the apology, but no certainty. So she had to be patient, and wait a little longer. Meanwhile, she kept the matter quite secret, not even breathing a word of it to Olive, for she thought, and very wisely, that if the whole affair fell through, it would be much better for no one to have known anything of it. But Monica was not very clever at keeping a secret, and if she had seen much of the Franklyns the probability is, that in a moment of forgetfulness she would have divulged it. However, the girls met but seldom during the days that elapsed between Mrs. Franklyn’s funeral and the school reopening. Once, when Monica was in Osmington, she ran up against Amethyst Drury, and, as they were talking, Mr. Howell’s motor car passed them, reminding the younger girl of his daughter. "I saw Lily the other day, Monica, and she wouldn’t look at me. She walked by just as proud as Lucifer. The idea! As if we were all to blame, and she was innocent! I’m awfully glad she won’t be at school any more." "I daresay we should feel pretty much as she does, Thistle, if we were in her place," was Monica’s reply; "she can’t enjoy herself much." "Quite as much as she deserves," said Amethyst, with decision; "horrid cheat!" "Oh, Thistle!" Monica’s tone was reproachful. "Well, I ought not to have said that, I know," said Amethyst penitently, "but I _don’t_ like her; do you, Monica?"