Mona accepts this excuse for bygone injustice, and even encourages her mother-in-law to enlarge upon it,--seeing how comfortable it is to her so to do,--and furthermore tries hard in her own kind heart to believe in it also.

She is perhaps as near being angry with Geoffrey as she can be when one day he pooh-poohs this charitable thought and gives it as his belief that worry had nothing to do with it, and that his mother behaved uncommonly badly all through, and that sheer obstinacy and bad temper was the cause of the whole matter.

"She had made up her mind that you would be insupportable, and she couldn't forgive you because you weren't," says that astute young man, with calm conviction. "Don't you be taken in, Mona."

But Mona in such a case as this prefers being "taken in" (though she may object to the phrase), and in process of time grows positively fond of Lady Rodney.

"In company with so divine a face, no rancorous thoughts could live,"

said the duke on one memorable occasion, alluding to Mona, which speech was rather a lofty soat for His Grace, he being for the most part of the earth, earthy.

Yet in this he spoke the truth, echoing Spenser (though unconsciously), where he says,----

"So every spirit, as it is most pure And hath in it the more of heavenly light.

So it the fairer bodie doth procure To habit in.

For of the soule the bodie forme doth take, For soule is forme and doth the bodie make."

With Lady Rodney she will, I think, be always the favorite daughter. She is quite her right hand now. She can hardly get on without her, and tells herself her blankest days are those when Mona and Geoffrey return to their own home, and the Towers no longer echoes to the musical laugh of old Brian Scully's niece, or to the light footfall of her pretty feet. Violet and Dorothy will no doubt be dear; but Mona, having won it against much odds, will ever hold first place in her affections.

After all, she has proved a great success. She has fought her fight, and gained her victory; but the conquered has deep reason to be grateful to her victor.

Where would they all be now but for her timely entry into the library on that night never to be forgotten, and her influence over the poor dead and gone cousin? Even in the matter of fortune she has not been behindhand, Paul Rodney's death having enriched her beyond all expectation. Without doubt, therefore, there is good reason to rejoice over Mrs. Geoffrey.

To this name, given to her in such an unkindly spirit, Mona clings with singular pertinacity. Once when Nolly has called her by it in Lady Rodney's hearing, the latter raises her head, and a remorseful light kindles in her eyes; and when Mr. Darling has taken himself away she turns entreatingly to Mona, and, with a warm accession of coloring, says, earnestly,--

"My dear, I behaved badly to you in that matter. Let me tell Oliver to call you Mrs. Rodney for the future. It is your proper name."

But Mona will not be entreated; sweetly, but firmly, she declines to alter the _sobriquet_ given her so long ago now. With much gentleness she tells Lady Rodney that she loves the name; that it is dearer to her than any other could ever be; that to be Mrs. Geoffrey is the utmost height of her very heighest ambition; and to change it now would only cause her pain and a vague sense of loss.

So after this earnest protest no more is ever said to her apon the subject, and Mrs. Geoffrey she is now to her mends, and Mrs. Geoffrey, I think, she will remain to the end of the chapter.

THE END.