To gain Lady Rodney's friendship is a more difficult thing than Mona in her ignorance had imagined, and she is to be ice itself to her poor little guest. As for her love, when first Mona's eyes lit upon her she abandoned all hope of ever gaining that.  
With Captain Rodney and Sir Nicholas she makes way at once, though she is a little nervous and , and not altogether like her usual gay self. She is thrown back upon herself, and, like a timid , sadly into her shell.
 
Yet Nature, sooner or later, must assert itself; and after a day or two a ringing laugh breaks from her, or a merry jest, that does Geoffrey's heart good, and brings an answering laugh and jest to the lips of her new brothers.
 
Of Violet Mansergh—who is still at the Towers, her father being abroad and Lady Rodney very desirous of having her with her—she knows little. Violet is cold, but quite civil, as Englishwomen will be until they know you. She is, besides, somewhat prejudiced against Mona, because—being honest herself—she has believed all the false tales told her of the Irish girl. These silly tales, in spite of her belief in her own independence of thought, weigh upon her; and so she draws back from Mona, and speaks little to her, and then of only ordinary topics, while the poor child is pining for some woman to whom she can open her mind and whom she may count as an honest friend "For talking with a friend," says Addison, "is nothing else but thinking aloud."
 
Of Lady Rodney's studied dislike Mona's sensitive nature could not long remain in ignorance; yet, having a clear conscience, and not knowing in what she has offended,—save in to the man she loves, even to the extent of marrying him,—she keeps a calm , and bravely waits what time may bring.
 
To quarrel with Geoffrey's people will be to cause Geoffrey silent but acute regret, and so for his sake, to save him pain, she quietly bears many things, and waits for better days. What is a month or two of , she tells herself, but a sigh amidst the pleasures of one's life? Yet I think it is the indomitable pluck and endurance of her race that carries her successfully through all her troubles.
 
Still, she grows a little pale and dispirited after a while, for
 
"Dare, when it once is entered in the breast,
Will have the whole possession ere it rest."
One day, speaking of Sir Nicholas to Lady Rodney, she had—as was most natural—called him "Nicholas." But she had been cast back upon herself and to the earth by his mother's look of cold and the emphasis she had laid upon the "Sir" Nicholas when next speaking of him.
 
This had widened the more than all the rest, though Nicholas himself, being quite fascinated by her, tries earnestly to make her happy and at home with him.
 
About a week after her arrival—she having expressed her of ferns the night before—he draws her hand through his arm and takes her to his own special sanctum,—off which a fernery has been thrown, he being an enthusiastic grower of that lovely weed.
 
Mona is with the many varieties she sees that are unknown to her, and, being very much not of the world, is not ashamed to express her delight. Looking carefully through all, she yet notices that a tiny one, dear to her, because common to her sweet Killarney, is not among his collection.
 
She tells him of it, and he is deeply interested; and when she proposes to write and get him one from her native soil, he is glad as a schoolboy promised a new bat, and her conquest of Sir Nicholas is complete.
 
And indeed the thought of this distant fern is as dear to Mona as to him. For to her comes a rush of tender joy, as she tells herself she may soon be growing in this alien earth a green plant torn from her fatherland.
 
"But I hope you will not be disappointed when you see it," she says, gently. "You have the real Killarney fern, Sir Nicholas, I can see; the other, I speak of, though to me almost as lovely, is not a bit like it."
 
She is very careful to give him his title ever since that encounter with his mother.
 
"I shall not be disappointed. I have read all about it," returns he, enthusiastically. Then, as though the thought has just struck him, he says,—
 
"Why don't you call me Nicholas, as Geoffrey does?"
 
Mona hesitates, then says, shyly, with downcast eyes,—
 
"Perhaps Lady Rodney would not like it."
 
Her face betrays more than she knows.
 
"It doesn't matter in the least what any one thinks on this subject," says Nicholas, with a slight frown, "I shall it a very great honor if you will call me by my name. And besides, Mona, I want you to try to care for me,—to love me, as I am your brother."
 
The ready tears spring into M............