Now Monica was not really an unfeeling girl, but being abnormally healthy and vigorous herself, she had scant sympathy with ailing people, and was of opinion that her grandmother coddled herself frightfully. Added to this, she knew that Mrs. Beauchamp had intended driving into Osmington that day, to call on some friends who would be likely to be able to tell her more about the Franklyns, and whether Monica might safely be allowed to mix with them. Now, with this cold, the drive would be impossible, and perhaps several days would elapse before she would get full permission to make a friend of Olive. It certainly _was_ vexing; it almost seemed to the disappointed girl as if her grandmother had caught cold on purpose; and Olive had hinted only the day before that perhaps Mrs. Beauchamp would let Monica come to tea, one day, with them, and the lonely girl was longing to have her first glimpse of real home life, and make the acquaintance of the "Pickle," and see the girls’ "den." And, in her chagrin, Monica, with a hasty movement, pushed the hot water jug roughly out of her way, as she reached after the butter dish, with the result that the silver cream jug, which she had carelessly placed near the edge of the table, tipped over, and spilling its contents on the handsome felt carpet, fell with sufficient force to bend the handle, and to make a very nasty dent in its pretty fluted side. "Oh, horrors!" ejaculated Monica, "there _will_ be a row!" and she endeavoured to mop up the cream with her serviette, and tried what she could do with the jug. "I suppose I must ring for Harriet," she muttered, in despair, as the carpet seemed to get worse under her treatment and the jug certainly no better! Her hasty ring brought the parlourmaid quickly on the scene, and that worthy held up her hands in horror at the dreadful state of the carpet. "Oh! Miss Monica," she gasped, "whatever will your grandma say? The carpet will be ruined, you may depend. There’ll be a nasty looking stain, however much we get it out. That’s the worst of these felts," and she hastened away, to return in a moment with cloths and hot water and various remedies for the mishap. Harriet went down on her knees and applied them vigorously, but an ugly dark patch remained, and, as she seemed to take great pleasure in reminding poor Monica, "it always would." She turned her attention to the cream jug next, but, of course, could do nothing to remove the dent, or straighten the twisted handle. "Oh, my!" she said; "your grandma will be vexed, Miss Monica, so partikler as she always is about the silver things, on account of their anticwitty, as she calls it. Well, well!"