As she stepped down from the van and stood alone in the inn yard, where John Darbie always unloaded, and put up his horse and van, Mona for the first time felt shy and nervous. She and her new mother were really strangers to each other. They had met but once, and that for only a little while. "And p'raps we shan't get on a bit," thought Mona. "P'raps she's very particular, and will be always scolding!" and she felt very miserable. And then, as she looked about her, and found that no one, as far as she could tell, had come to meet her, she began to feel very forlorn, and ill-used too. All the sharp little unkind remarks about Lucy Carne, which had fallen from Granny Barnes' lips, came back to her mind. "I do think somebody might have come to meet me!" she said to herself, and being tired, and nervous, and a little bit homesick for granny, the tears rushed to her eyes. Hastily diving in her pocket for her handkerchief, her fingers touched her purse, and she suddenly realised that she had not paid John Darbie his fare! With a thrill and a blush at her own forgetfulness, she hurried back to where he was busy unloading his van. He had already taken down the pigs and some bundles of peasticks, and a chair which wanted a new cane seat, and was about to mount to the top to drag down the luggage which was up there, when he saw Mona waiting for him. "Please, here's my fare. I'm sorry I forgot it, and how am I to get my box up to my house?" "Get your box up? Why the same way as you'll get yourself up. Hop inside again, and I'll drive 'ee both up in a minute. I promised your mother I would. You hold on to your money now, it'll be time enough to settle up when I've done my job," and the old man chuckled amiably at his little joke. But Mona did not want to get back into the close, stuffy van again, and sit there in solitary state, with everyone who passed by staring at her. So, as soon as John Darbie was safely on the top and busy amongst the boxes there, she walked quietly out of the yard and into the street. How familiar it all was, and how unchanged! After Milbrook--the little ugly new town, scarcely worthy the name of town--and the hamlet where her granny lived, the street and houses looked small and old-fashioned, but they looked homelike and strong. The Milbrook houses, with their walls half a brick thick, and their fronts all bow-windows, would not have lasted any time in little stormy, wind-swept Seacombe. Experience had taught Seacombe folk that their walls must be nearly as solid as the cliffs on which many of them were built, and the windows must be small and set deep in the walls; otherwise they were as likely as not to be blown in altogether when the winter storms raged; that roofs must come well down to meet the little windows, like heavy brows protecting the eyes beneath, which under their shelter, could gaze out defiantly at sea and storm.