up the steep little staircase, which Mona remembered so well.

"You know the way to your old room, don't you?"

Mona walked ahead to it, but at the door she drew up with a cry of
delight. "Oh, Mother!" she turned to say with a beaming face, and without
noticing that she had called her by the name about which she and granny
had debated so long.

Lucy noticed it though, and coloured with pleasure. She had felt more shy
than had Mona, about suggesting what her stepchild should call her.
"Thank you, dear, for calling me that," she said, putting her arm about
her and kissing her. "I didn't know, I wondered how you would feel about
it."

But Mona was too delighted with everything she saw to feel anything but
pleasure and gratitude then. The walls had been papered with a pretty
rose-covered paper, the shabby little bed had been painted white.
Pretty pink curtains hung at the window, and beside the bed stood a small
bookcase with all Mona's own books in it. Books that she had left lying
about torn and shabby, and had thought would have been thrown away, or
burnt, long ago. Lucy had collected them, and mended and cleaned them.
And Lucy, who had brought to her new house many of the ideas she had
gathered while in service at the Squire's, had painted the furniture white
too, to match the bed.

Mona had never in her life before seen anything so pretty and dainty.
"Isn't it lovely!" she cried, sitting down plump on the clean white quilt,
and crushing it. "I can't believe it's for me." She looked about her
with admiring eyes as she dragged off her hat and tossed it from her,
accidentally knocking over the candlestick as she did so.

Lucy stooped and picked up both. The candlestick was chipped, the hat was
certainly not improved.

"The chipped place will not show much," said Lucy in her gentle, tired
voice, "but you've crushed the flowers in your hat."

Mona looked at the hat with indifferent eyes. "Have I? Oh, well, it's my
last year's one. I shall want a new one for the summer."

"Shall you, dear?"

Mona did not notice the little anxious pucker of her mother's forehead.
Carried away by all that had been done for her already, she had the
feeling that money must be plentiful at Cliff Cottage. Her father's boat
had done well, she supposed.

But before any more was said, a sound of footsteps reached them from
below, and a loud voice, gruff but kindly, shouted through the little
place "Lucy, where are you, my gi