"A penny for your thoughts, Mona dear," said Evelyn's quiet voice a minute later. "Mr Dickinson has asked you twice how you like this old chatelaine. He wants to buy it for his sister."
Mona laughed and blushed.
"My thoughts are worth more than a penny," she said,—"to me at least." In point of fact, she was wondering whether it would be a part of her duty to say "Sir" and "Madam" to her customers at Borrowness.
In the course of the afternoon the Munros met a number of friends and acquaintances, and the next few days passed gaily away in excursions of all kinds. Night after night the party came home, sunburnt and stiff, but not too tired to enjoy a bright discussion across the pleasant dinner-table. There was nothing very profound about these conversations. Everybody had toiled and climbed enough during the day. Now they were content to fly lightly from crag to crag over a towering difficulty, or to cross a yawning problem on a rainbow bridge.
But after all, they were happy, and the world was not waiting in suspense for their conclusions.
Sunday morning came round all too soon, and on Monday the Munros were to sail for Bergen. Mona was sitting alone on the verandah, watching the people coming to church. The fjord lay sparkling in the sunshine, and from every hamlet and homestead along the coast, as far as the eye could reach, boats were setting out for Odde. As they drew in to the pier, the voluminous white sleeves, stiff halo-like caps, and brilliant scarlet bodices, made a pretty foreground of light and colour in the landscape.
But in the midst of her enjoyment Mona drew a long, deep, heartfelt sigh.
A little later Evelyn joined her. "I have been looking for you everywhere, Mona," she said. "Mr Dickinson has set his heart on going to the Buarbrae glacier to-day. The others all went before we came, and I think it would be insane to tire ourselves the last day. Father says he has not got over that 'Skedaddle' waterfall yet. You don't care to go, do you?"
Mona's eyes were still fixed on the fjord.
"Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die," she said half absently. "I will go with all the pleasure in life."