when a sudden intuition made her look round, and, to her horror, she saw two men regarding her with an amused smile.
One was elderly, ruddy, and commonplace; the other was young, sallow, mournful, and interesting. Both carried vasculums a good deal more battered and weather-beaten than Mona's own.
She coloured up to the roots of her hair, and then made the best of the situation, laughing quietly, and proceeding with her sandwiches the while.
The ruddy man lifted his hat with a friendly bow. "But for the nineteenth-century character of your song," he said, "I should have taken you for the nymph of the coast."
"In a go-ahead county like this," said Mona gravely, returning his bow, "even the nymph of the coast is expected to keep pace with the times."
"True," he said. "I had forgotten where I was. Has the nymph of the coast got anything interesting in her vasculum?"
"Nothing really rare, I fear, though I have found a good deal that is new to me. Oh, by the way, I found a plant of penny-cress in some waste ground near Kilwinnie. Is that common here?"
"Thlaspi arvense?" he said sceptically, looking at his sallow companion.
The younger man shook his head. "I never saw it in the neighbourhood," he said.
"I am quite open to conviction, of course," said Mona. and, rummaging in her vasculum, she produced a bunch of large, flat, green "pennies."