"So am I, dear," said Mona simply.
"Of course! I knew you would come back to the point you started from."
Mona smiled. "You are determined not to make it a spiral, I see. Ah, well! taking it as a circle, it is a bigger one than I imagined."
Her words would not have struck Doris but for the tone in which they were unconsciously spoken.
"What has biggened it?" she said, looking up from the fire.
Mona's hands were clasped beneath her head on the low back of her arm-chair, and her eyes were fixed on the ceiling.
"I don't know," she said. "Many things. How is Maggie getting on?"
"Famously. Laurie says she will make a first-rate cook. You should have seen the child's face when I told her you were coming! I am so grateful to you, Mona, for giving me a chance to help her. There is so little that one can do!—that I can do at least! She is a sweet little thing, and so pretty. When I think of that man——" her face crimsoned, and she stopped short.
"Don't think of him, dear," said Mona. "It us no use; and, you know, you must not spoil Maggie."
Doris bent low over the fire, and the tears glistened on her long eyelashes. She tried to wink them away, but it was no use; and, after all, there was only Mona there to see, and Mona was almost a second self. She pressed her handkerchief hard against her eyes for a moment, and then turned to her friend with a smile.