inside!"

But letters did not come every day to Hillside Cottage, so when they did
they must be made the most of. Mrs. Barnes examined the envelope back and
front; the handwriting, the stamp, the postmark; then she had to go to a
drawer to get a skewer with which to slit the envelope, then her
spectacles had to be found, polished, and put on, and at long last she
took out the letter and began to read.

Mona chafed with impatience as she watched her. Her eyes looked ready to
pop out of her head with eagerness. "Why don't you let me read it to
you?" she cried at last, irritably, and regretted her words as soon as
they were spoken. Granny laid the letter on the table beside her and
fixed her eyes on Mona instead. "I am not got past reading my own letters
yet," she said sternly, looking out over the tops of her spectacles at
her. Mona was dreadfully afraid they would fall off, and then the
polishing and fixing process would all have to be gone through again,
but she had the wisdom to hold her tongue this time, and granny took up
the letter again, and at last began to read it, while Mona tried hard to
read granny's face.

She did not utter aloud one word of what she was reading, but presently
she gave a little half-suppressed cry.

"Oh, granny, what's the matter?" Mona could keep quiet no longer.

"Oh, dear! oh, dear! Here's a pretty fine thing. Your father wants you
to go home."

Mona's face fell again. Then he had not sent any money, and she would not
be able to have her hat! For the moment nothing else seemed to matter.

"What does he want me home for?" she asked sullenly.

"Your stepmother has been ill again, and the doctor says she mustn't be
left alone, and must have someone to help her. She's terrible nervous
when your father's away to the fishing, so you've got to be fetched home."
Mrs. Barnes spoke resentfully. Her daughter, Mona's mother, had died when
Mona was a sturdy little maiden of ten, and for eighteen months Mona had
run wild. Her father could not bear to part with her, nor would he have
anyone to live with them. So Mona had been his housekeeper, or rather,
the house had kept itself, for Mona had taken no care of it, nor of her
father's comforts, nor of her own clothes, or his. She just let
everything go, and had a gloriously lazy, happy time, with no one to
restrain her, or make her do anything she did not want to do.

She was too young, of course, to be put in such a position; but