"Why, it's Mona Carne!" cried a voice behind her, and Mona, wheeling swiftly round, found Millie Higgins at her elbow.
"Why, who ever would have thought of meeting you strolling up the street just as though you had never been away!" cried Millie. "But you've grown, Mona. You are ever so much taller than when you went away, and your hair's longer too. Do you think I am changed?"
Mona was delighted. She wanted to be tall, and she wanted to have nice long hair. She had never cared for Millie Higgins before, but at that moment she felt that she liked her very much indeed, and they chattered eagerly to each other, lost to everything but the news they had to pour into each other's ears.
After a little while, though, Millie tired of talking. She wanted to get on, and what Millie wanted to do she generally did. "I must fly—and there's your poor mother home worrying herself all this time to a fiddle-string, wondering what has become of you. She expected the van an hour ago, and had got your tea all ready and waiting for you."
Mona started guiltily, and then began to excuse herself. "Well, we were late in coming, we were so long on the road. Mr. Darbie said he'd drive me up, but I liked walking best. If I had gone up by the van I shouldn't have been there yet, so it's all the same."
"The van! Why, it's gone by. Only a minute ago, though. If you run you'll be there almost as soon as he will."
Without staying to say good-bye, Mona ran, but either Millie's minute had been a very long one, or 'Lion' had stepped out more briskly at the end of the day than at the beginning, for when Mona got to the house John Darbie was just coming away. "Thank'ee, ma'am," he was saying, and Mona saw him putting some coins in his pocket.
"I've got the——" she began to call out to him, but stopped, for her new mother came out to the gate, and looked anxiously down the hill. She was looking for herself, Mona knew, and a fit of shyness came over her which drove every other thought from her mind.
But almost as quickly as the shyness came it disappeared again, for Lucy's eyes fell on her, and, her face alight with pleasure, Lucy came forward with arms outstretched in welcome. "Why, you poor little tired thing, you," she cried, kissing her warmly, "you must be famished! Come in, do. I was quite frightened about you, for I've been expecting you this hour and more, and then when Mr. Darbie came, and brought only your box, it seemed as if I wasn't ever going to see you. Come in, dear," drawing Mona's arm through her own, and leading her into the house. "Sit down and rest a bit before you go up to see your room."
Exhausted with excitement, and talking, and the extra exertion, Lucy herself had to sit down for a few minutes to get her breath. Mona, more tired than she realised until she came to sit down, lay back in her father's big chair and looked about her with shy interest. How familiar it all seemed, yet how changed. Instead of the old torn, soiled drab paper, the walls were covered with a pretty blue one, against which the dresser and table and the old familiar china showed up spotless and dainty; the steel on the stove might have been silver, the floor was as clean and snowy as the table.