"Well, I'm sure I never heard the like! She just takes her use of you."
"You must not forget that she allows me to practise on the organ whenever I like. It is an infinite treat to me."
"And what's the use of it, I wonder? You can't take an organ about with you when you go out to tea."
"That's perfectly true," said Mona, laughing; "it is a selfish pleasure, no doubt."
"It all comes of your going to the English chapel in the evening. If you'd taken my advice, you'd never have darkened its doors. They say so much about Mr Ewing being a gentleman, but I do think it was a queer-like thing their asking you to lunch, and never saying a word about me. Mr Stuart doesn't set himself up for anything great, but he did ask you to tea along with me."
"The Ewings have not been introduced to you, dear."
"And whose doing is that, I'd like to know? We've met them often enough in the town."
Mona sighed. She considered that lunch at the Ewings' the great mistake of her life at Borrowness. She had resolved so heroically that Rachel's friends were to be her friends; but the invitation had been given suddenly, and she had accepted it. She had not stopped to think of infant baptism, or the relations of Church and State; or the propriety of a clergyman eking out his scanty stipend by raising prize poultry, or of allowing himself to be "taken up" by the people at the Towers; she had had a momentary mental vision of silky damask and of sparkling crystal, of intelligent conversation and of cultured voices, and the temptation had proved irresistible. The meek man lives in history by his hasty word, the truthful man's lie echoes on throughout the ages; the sin that is in opposition to our character, and to the resolutions of a lifetime, stands out before all the world with hideous distinctness. So in the very nature of things, if Mona had gone to Borrowness, as she might have done, armed with introductions to all the county families in the neighbourhood, Rachel would have felt herself less injured than by that single lunch at the Ewings'.
"Well, I will order the things at Donald's," said Mona, after an awkward silence.
"Yes; tell him I'll take the shortbread in any case, but I'll only take the cookies if my visitors come."