"Thank you! I mean to be there when the clock strikes two. There won't be any crush. It's not like the Matric; and besides, every one has gone down. I am sure I wish I had! A telegram 'strikes home,' but the slow torture of wading through those lists——!"
She broke off abruptly, and Mona returned to her book, but before she had read half-a-dozen lines a parasol was inserted between her eyes and the page.
"It will be a treat, won't it?—wiring to the other students that everybody has passed but me!"
"Lucy, you are intolerable. Have you finished packing?"
"Practically."
"Do you mean to travel half the night in that gown?"
"Not being a millionaire like you, I do not. You little know the havoc this frock has to work yet. But I presume you would not have me walk down to Burlington House in my old serge?"
"Why not? You say everybody is out of town."
"Precisely. Therefore we, the exceptions, will be all the more en évidence. I don't mean to be taken for an 'advanced woman.' Some of the Barts. men will be there, and——"
But Mona was not listening. She had risen from the cushions on which she had been lounging, and was pacing up and down the grass.