"Well?" said Mona, when she was gone.
"I think she is splendid—so energetic and sensible. But, you know, I do wish she wore gloves; and she would look so nice in a bonnet."
"Come, don't be narrow-minded."
"I am not narrow-minded. Personally I like her all the better for her unconventionality. It is the Cause I am thinking of."
"Oh, the Cause! It seems to me, dear, that the prophets of great causes always have a thorn in the flesh that they themselves are conscious of, and half-a-dozen other thorns that other people are conscious of; but the cause survives notwithstanding."
"I have no doubt that it will survive; but it seems to me that a little care on the part of the prophets would make it grow so much faster. Well, dear, I must go. I will come again on Friday. You will come to my aunt's 'At Home,' won't you?"
"If Lucy is better, and your aunt gives me another chance, I shall be only too glad. I shall have to unearth a gown from my boxes at Tilbury's. Heigh-ho, Doris! I might as well have gone all along, for all the good my abstinence did me. A deal of wasted pluck and moral courage goes to failing in one's Intermediate M.B.!"
"You have been gone a quarter of an hour," said Lucy fretfully, when Mona re-entered the sick-room, "and Miss Colquhoun had you all day yesterday."
"You are getting better, little woman," said Mona, kissing her.
"We have so much to talk about——"