mother's face anxiously. Lucy looked grave and a little troubled. "Wasn't that your summer hat that you had on yesterday? It was a very pretty one. I'm so fond of wreaths of daisies and grasses, aren't you?"

"Yes—I was—I'm tired of them now. I wore that hat a lot last summer."

"Did you? Well, you kept it very nicely. I thought it was a new one, it looked so fresh and pretty."

"I'd like to have one trimmed with forget-me-nots this year," Mona went on hurriedly, paying no heed to her mother's last remarks.

"They are very pretty," agreed Lucy, absently. In her mind she was wondering how she could find the money for all these different things.

"I've got eighteenpence," broke in Mona, and the plunge was taken. She was keeping the eighteen-pence, though she knew it belonged either to her granny or to Lucy. As soon as the words were spoken she almost wished them back again, but it was too late, and she went on her downhill way.

"Mother, if you'll get me the hat, I'll buy the wreath myself. They've got some lovely ones down at Tamlin's for one and five three. There are some at one and 'leven three, but that's sixpence more, and I haven't got enough."

"Very well, dear, we'll think about it. It's early yet for summer hats." She was trying to think of things she could do without, that Mona might have her hat. If she had been her own child, she would have told her plainly that she did not need, and could not have a new one, but it was not easy—as things were—to do that.

Mona's heart leaped with joy. Though she had known Lucy such a little while, she somehow felt that she could trust her not to forget. That when she said she would think about a thing, she would think about it, and already she saw with her mind's eye, the longed-for hat, the blue wreath, and the bow of ribbon, and her face beamed with happiness.

"I can do without the aprons and the print frocks," she said, in the generosity of her heart, though it gave her a wrench. But Lucy would not hear of that. She had her own opinion about the grubby-looking blue serge, and the fancy apron, which were considered 'good enough' for mornings.

"No, dear, you need them more than you need the hat. If ever anyone should be clean it's when one is making beds, and cooking, and doing all that sort of thing, I think, don't you?"

Mona had never given the subject a thought before. In fact, she had done so little work while with her grandmother, and when she 'kept house' herself had cared so little about appearance or cleanliness, or anything, that it had never occurred to her that such things mattered. But now that her stepmother appealed to her in this way she felt suddenly a sense of importance and a glow of interest.

"Oh, yes! and I'll put my hair up, and always have on a nice white apron and a collar; they do look so pretty over pink frocks, don't they?"

"Yes, and I must teach you how to wash and get them up."

"Oh!" Mona's interest grew suddenly lukewarm. "I hate washing and ironing, don't you, mother?"

"I like other kinds of work better, perhaps. I think I should like the washing if I didn't get so tired with it. I don't seem to have the strength to do it as I want it done. It is lovely, though, to see things growing clean under one's hand, isn't it?"

But Mona had never learnt to take pride in her work. "I don't know," she answered indifferently. "I should never have things that were always wanting washing."

Lucy rose to go about her morning's work. "Oh, come now," she said, smiling, "I can't believe that. Don't you think your little room looks prettier with the white vallance and quilt and the frill across the window than it would without?"

"Oh, yes!" Mona agreed enthusiastically. "But then I didn't have to wash them and iron them."

"Well, I had to, and I enjoyed it, because I was thinking how nice they would make your room look, and how pleased you would be."

"I don't see that. If you were doing them for yourself, of course, you'd be pleased, but I can't see why anyone should be pleased about what other people may like."

"Oh, Mona! can't you?" Lucy looked amazed. "Haven't you ever heard the saying, 'there is more pleasure in giving than in receiving'?"

"Yes, I think I've heard it," said Mona, flippantly, "but I never saw any sense in it. There's lots of things said that ain't a bit true."

"This is true enough," said Lucy quietly, "and I hope you'll find it so for yourself, or you will miss half the pleasure in life."

"Well, I don't believe in any of those old sayings," retorted Mona, rising too. "Anyway, receiving's good enough for me!" and she laughed boisterously, thinking she had said something new and funny.

A little cloud rested for a moment on Lucy's face, but only for a moment. "It isn't nice to hear you speak like that, Mona," she said quietly, a note of pain in her voice, "but I can't make myself believe yet that you are as selfish as you make out. I believe," looking across at her stepdaughter with kindly, smiling eyes, "that you've got as warm a heart as anybody, really."

And at the words and the look all the flippant, silly don't-careishness died out of Mona's thoughts and manner.

Yet, presently, when in her own little room again, she opened her little blue purse and looked in it, a painful doubt arose in her mind. It was nice to be considered good-hearted, but was she really so? And unselfish? "If I was, wouldn't I make my last year's hat do? Wouldn't I give back the eighteenpence?" What tiresome questions they were to come poking and pushing forward so persistently. Anyhow, her mother knew now that she wanted a hat, and she knew that she had the money, and that she was going to spend it on herself—and yet she had called her unselfish!

And downstairs, Lucy, with an anxious face, and a weight at her heart, was thinking to herself, "If Mona had lived much longer the idle, selfish life she has been living, her character would have been ruined, and there is so much that is good in her! Poor child, poor Mona! She has never had a fair chance yet to learn to show the best side of her, and I doubt if I'm the one to teach her. I couldn't be hard with her if I tried, and being her stepmother will make things more difficult for me than for most. I couldn't live in the house with strife. I must try other means, and," she added softly, "ask God to help me."

CHAPTER IV.

For a while, after that talk with her mother, Mona worked with a will. She swept, and scrubbed, and polished the stove and the windows and helped with the washing and ironing, until Lucy laughingly declared there would soon be nothing left for her to do.

"That's just what I want," declared Mona. "I want you not to have anything to do. Perhaps I can't manage the cooking yet, but I'll learn to in time." Excited by the novelty and change, and buoyed up by the prospect of her new hat, and new frocks and aprons too, she felt she could do anything, and could not do enough in return for all that was to be done for her, and, when Mona made up her mind to work, there were few who could outdo her. She would go on until she was ready to drop.

As the spring days grew warmer, she would get so exhausted that Lucy sometimes had to interfere peremptorily, and make her stop. "Now you sit right down there, out of the draught, and don't you move a foot till I give you leave. I will get you a nice cup of tea, and one of my new tarts; they're just this minute ready to come out of the oven."

A straight screen, reaching from floor to ceiling, stood at one side of the door, to keep off some of the draught and to give some little privacy to those who used the kitchen. Mona dried her hands and slipped gratefully into the chair that stood between the screen and the end of the table.

"Oh, mother, this is nice," she sighed, her face radiant, though her shoulders drooped a little with tiredness.

"Isn't it beautiful? I love