"You might as well write to Miss Buckingham this evening, if you are still anxious to do so," she said, when she had heard what Mrs. Howell said; "there is no time to spare, as the letter will have to be forwarded to wherever she is spending her holidays."
And Monica gladly fetched her writing-case, and began to write what proved to be a very difficult epistle. Her pen had to be nibbled thoughtfully many times before the letter was accomplished, and then the result was not all that the writer could wish. She was rather afraid that Mrs. Beauchamp would ask to see it before it went; but, fortunately, just as Monica had signed her name, in school-girl calligraphy, at the end of perhaps the most tidy letter she had ever written, the old lady roused up from the little doze in which she had been indulging, and bade Monica hasten, or she would lose the post.
"I have just finished, grannie," and as Monica laid down her pen, Harriet came to say that Richards was waiting for the letters.
"Have you any to send to-night, grannie? No? Then there is only this one, Harriet," and Monica breathed a sigh of relief as she shut up her writing-case and prepared to read to her grandmother.
Not the most agreeable of tasks was this; for Mrs. Beauchamp considered that it was "improving" for her granddaughter to read aloud for at least half an hour every evening. Monica was not a very fluent reader, so that she was continually being pulled up for leaving out commas, or for emphasising quite the wrong word. The interruptions would have been very trying if the book had been even the least bit interesting, but as it really seemed to have been chosen for its dryness and dullness, Monica did not mind. However, she tried her hardest, nowadays, to read carefully, and with a fair amount of expression, and she was far less often interrupted than she used to be. She did want to be what Marcus Drury called a "whatsoever" Christian.
"You really begin to read quite nicely, Monica," her grandmother said approvingly, as she finished a chapter, and was told that would do for that evening. "Your father would be greatly pleased with the improvement there has been in you lately."
Tears of joy sprang to Monica's eyes, as she put the book away, and then stooped and gave the old lady a "good-night" kiss.
"What has made the difference in you, Monica?"
And for the second time that day the young girl answered radiantly, but humbly, "The Lord Jesus Christ."
"Little Elsa said that was what it was," muttered Mrs. Beauchamp under her breath, as she toyed nervously with her eye-glasses. "Well, child, keep it up, it answers very well," she added, in a louder tone.