This afternoon, while granny was talking, and taking a stitch occasionally, Lucy picked up the other curtain and made it. It was not a very big matter; all the windows in Seacombe houses were small. Then she put on the kettle, and while it was boiling she took the other curtain from granny's frail hand and worked away at that too. The weather was hot, and the door stood wide open, letting in the mingled scents of the many sweet flowers which filled every foot of the garden. A sweet-brier bush stood near the window, great clumps of stocks, mignonette and verbenas lined the path to the gate. "I didn't mean to stay to tea," said granny, realizing at last that Lucy was preparing some for her. "I was going to get home in time." "Mona won't have got it, will she?" "Oh, no, she won't think about it, I expect. She has got a book, and when she's reading she's lost to everything. I never knew a child so fond of reading." "You spoil her, granny! You let her have her own way too much." Then they both laughed, for each accused the other of 'spoiling' Mona. "I don't like her to work too hard," said granny. "She'd got to look very thin and delicate. I think she's looking better, though, don't you?" "Yes, ever so much," Lucy reassured her, and granny's face brightened. Mona, meanwhile, went on reading, lost, as granny said, to everything but her book. She did not even look out to sea. She heard no sound either in the house or out. Heart and mind she was with the people of the story. She was living their life. The baker came and knocked two or three times; then, opening the door, put a loaf on the table, and went away. Then presently came more knocking, and more, but none of it reached Mona's brain. She was flying with the heroine, and enjoying hairbreadth escapes, while running away from her wicked guardian, when her bedroom door was flung open, and Millie Higgins--not the wicked guardian--appeared on the threshold. Mona gave a little cry of alarm, then immediately grew angry with herself for having let Millie see that she had startled her. "What are you doing up here?" she demanded, bluntly. "Who told you to come up? Granny isn't in, is she?" Millie laughed. "If your grandmother had been in I should have been at the other end of the street by this time. I've no fancy for facing dragons in their caves." "Don't be rude," retorted Mona, colouring with anger. Millie always laughed at Mrs. Barnes, because she was old-fashioned in her dress and ways. "How did you get in, and why did you come? If granny didn't send you up, you'd no right to come. It's like your cheek, Millie Higgins, to go forcing your way into other people's houses!" "It's like your carelessness to shut yourself up with a story-book and leave your front door open. I ain't the first that has been in! Wouldn't your grandmother be pleased if she knew how trustworthy her dear, good little Mona was."