She reached the tiny homestead she had seen from Stalheim, and she waved her handkerchief for some minutes, looking in vain for an answering signal. She was very near the Jördalsnut now, but to her great disappointment she found herself separated from it by a yawning valley which it was quite impossible to cross. The path by which she had come was continued along the hillside into this valley, turning upon itself almost at right angles.
"It's clear I shall get nowhere near the dear old roundhead to-night," she said, "but I may be able to see at least how the path reaches it ultimately."
She walked on for some time, however, without coming to any turning, and her spirits began to flag. The whole scene had changed within the last half-hour. The air was damp; poor-looking, half-grown trees concealed the view; and the ground was covered with long, dank grass.
"I suppose I must turn," she said regretfully. "I take five minutes' rest, and then be off home."
She seated herself on a great mossy boulder, and suddenly bethought herself of Lucy's letter. The familiar handwriting and words looked strangely out of place in this dreary solitude.
"MY DEAR MONA,—Perhaps you would like to know what I did when I read your letter. I sat on the floor and howled! Not with laughter,—don't flatter yourself that your witticisms had anything to do with it. They only added insult to injury. Don't imagine either that I mean to argue with you. It is impossible to influence you when your decision is right; and when it is wrong, one might as well reason with a mule. The idea! I told father you would walk through the examination in January and take your final M.B., when I did. It once or twice crossed my mind with horror that you might content yourself with a Scotch 'Triple,' or even a beggarly L.S.A.; but that you would be insane enough to chuck the whole thing, never so much as entered my head. It is too absurd. Because, as you are pleased to say, you have thrown three or four years of your life to the pigs and whistles, is that any reason why you should throw a fifth?
"And have you really the conceit to suppose that you would make a good barmaid—a profession that requires inborn talent and careful cultivation? Can you flirt a little bit, may I ask? Could you flirt if your life depended on it? Would anything ever teach you to flirt? Personally I take the liberty of doubting it. I suppose you think improving conversation and scientific witticisms will do equally well, or better?—will amuse the men, and improve them at the same time? Gott bewahre!
"Do you consider yourself even qualified to be a linen-draper's shop-girl? Are you in the habit of submitting to the whims and caprices of every Tom, Dick, and Harry who confers on you the favour of bargaining with you for a good penny's-worth? Is it possible you do not realise the extent to which you have always been—to use a metaphor of your own—the positively electrified object in the field?—how we have all meekly turned a negative side to you, and have revenged ourselves by being positive to the rest of the world? Can you hope to be a comfort even to your cousin? Do you think she will enjoy being snubbed if she calls things 'stylish' or 'genteel'? Do you imagine that 'Evenings with the Microscope' will fill the place of a comfortable gossip about village nothings and nonentities?
"Oh Mona, my friend, my wonderful, beautiful Mona, don't be an abject idiot! Write to your cousin that you have been a fool, and let us see your dear face in October. How is the School to get along without you?
"In any case, darling, write to me, and that right soon. Why did you not tell me more about the Munros. The idea of dangling such a delicious morsel as Sir Douglas before my eyes for a moment, only to withdraw him again? How could you tantalise me so? You know hot-tempered, military old Anglo-Indians are my Schwärmerei, &c., &c., &c."