"Verily, my dear," she said, with a heavy sigh, "the study of the Algæ and Fungi is a large one, and leads us further than we anticipated."
Auntie Bell would not have been the shrewd woman she was, if she had not seen at a glance that something was wrong with her darling; but she showed her sympathy by hastily "masking the tea," and cutting great slices from a home-made cake.
"Eh, but ye're a sicht for sair een!" she said, as she bustled in and out of the sitting-room. "I declare ye're bonnier than iver i' that fur thing. Weel, hoo's a' wi' ye?"
"Oh, I am blooming, as you see. Rachel is well, too."
"An' what w'y suld she no' be weel? She's no' i' the w'y o' daein' onything that's like to mak' her ill, I fancy, eh? Hae ye been efter the butterflies again wi' Maister Broon?"
The unexpected question brought the tell-tale colour to Mona's cheek.
"No," she said, "I am not going any more. It is not the weather for that sort of thing."
"Na," said Auntie Bell tersely; "nor he isna the mon for that sort o' thing. He's a guid mon, nae doot, an' a cliver, they say, for a' he's sae quite an' sae canny, an' sae ta'en up wi's beasts and things; but he's no' the mon for the like o' you. Ye wadna tak' him, Mona?"
"Dear Auntie Bell," said Mona abashed, "such a thing never even occurred to me——"
She did not add "until," but her honest face said it for her.