To Mona herself no thought of this had come. Though the young men with whom as schoolmates she had studied, and who now as fishermen, with ill-smelling garb and sea-tanned hands and faces, often sought her, to none did she give encouragement, and with none found agreeable companionship. What her future might be, and with whom spent, gave her no concern. Each day she lived as it came, helping her mother in the simple home life and the making of their raiment, stealing away occasionally to spend a few hours with Uncle Jess, or in summer to hide herself in the Devil's Oven, and play on the violin he had given her, or practise with him as a teacher. This violin and its playing, it must be stated, had been and was the only bone of contention between Mona and her mother, and just why that mother found it hard to explain, except that it was a man's instrument and not a woman's. Their humble parlor boasted a small cottage organ. "Let Mona learn to play on that," she had said when Jess first began to teach Mona the art of the bowstrings, "it's more graceful for a girl to do that than sawing across a fiddle stuck under her chin." And this matter of grace, so vital to that mother's peace of mind, was the only point of dispute between them. But Uncle Jess sided with Mona, and the mother gave in, for with her, for many potent reasons, the will and wishes of Uncle Jess must not be thwarted, even if wrong. However, the dispute drove Mona and the fiddle out of the house, and when she had finally mastered it (at least in a measure), it stayed out. In this connection, it may be said, there was also a difference in opinion between Mrs. Hutton and Jess regarding the future of Mona, and though never discussed before her, for obvious reasons, it existed. With Mrs. Hutton the measure of her own life, or what it had been, as well as that of her neighbors, was broad enough for Mona. "It's going to spoil her," she asserted on one of these occasions, "this getting the idea into her head that those she has been brought up with are not good enough for her. They may not be, but we are here and likely to stay here, and once a girl gets her head full o' high notions and that she's better than the rest, it's all day with her." "Thar ain't no use interferin'," Jess responded, "whatever notions Mona's got, she's got, an' ye can't change 'em. If she likes the smell o' wild roses better'n fishin' togs, she does; and if she turns up her nose at them as don't think 'nough o' pleasin' her ter change togs when they come round, I 'gree with her. Wimmin, an' young wimmin 'specially, air notional, an' though most on 'em 'round here has ter work purty hard, it ain't no sign their notions shouldn't be considered. I've stayed in houses whar wimmin wa'n't 'lowed to lift a finger an' had sarvants ter fan 'em when 'twas hot, an' though that ain't no sign Mona'll git it done for her, I hope I'll never live ter see her drudgin' like some on 'em here."