With this new interest to lift her thoughts from her troubles, Mona regained health so rapidly that she was able to leave the hospital sooner than anyone had dared to hope. Poor Lucy, who had to stay there some weeks longer, watched her departure with tearful eyes. "I shall feel lonely without you, dear," she said, "but for your own sake, and father's, I am glad you are going home. You will look after him, won't you, and see to his comforts—and I'll be back in about three weeks, they say, though I'll have to go about on crutches for a bit."
"Oh, yes, I'll look after father. Don't you worry, mother, I'll see to things," Mona reassured her.
"I expect you will find the house in a pretty mess, and the garden too. When I ran out that night, I little thought I wouldn't be back for nigh on two months. It's a lesson to one to be always prepared."
"Don't you worry, mother, we'll soon get it all straight again. I am sure your place was tidier than any other in Seacombe would be, left in a hurry like that, and in the middle of the night."
"But, Mona, you mustn't do too much." Lucy's anxieties took a new direction. She knew how Mona could, and would work, when she was in the mood to. "Don't be doing too much and making yourself ill. That would trouble me ever so much more than having the house untidy. You leave it all till I come home. When I am able to move about again I'll soon get things nice."
Mona nodded, with a laugh in her eyes. "Why, of course, everything will be scrubbed inside and out, top and bottom, when you get home to do it, mother." But in her mind she added, "if you can find anything needing it."
Then she kissed her 'good-bye,' promising to come again soon. "And I'll take her a few flowers out of her own garden," she thought. "She will love that better than anything. But I expect the garden has run wild by this time."
She did not say as much to her mother, for she had learnt how much such thoughts worried her; but she did to her father when he came to fetch her. He only smiled though. "You wait till you see it, my girl," he said mysteriously, "then you'll know how things have gone since you have been away."
"There!" triumphantly, when they presently drew up at the gate. "Do you say now that a poor lone man can't keep his place tidy while his women-folk are away!" and Mona stared, wide-eyed with surprise, for, instead of bushes all beaten down and tangled, weedy paths, and stripped flower beds, as she had pictured, the whole garden seemed full. Geraniums, phlox, mignonette, roses, snapdragons, and pansies made the beds gay, while at the back of them great bushes of Michaelmas daisies and chrysanthemums stood erect, neatly tied up to stakes.
"But how?—who—whenever did you find time, father?"