of her lips.

"No. You can finish packing this trunk, then you may take these dresses
to the sewing-room. You may begin ripping this brown one. And you may
take the pieces of that picture down and tell Mary to burn them. I came
up for a wrap; I am going for a drive."

Mrs. Montague secured her wrap, then swept from the room, walking
fiercely over the torn portrait, looking as if she would have been glad
to trample thus upon the living girl whom she had so hated.

Mona reverently gathered up the fragments, her lips quivering with pain
and indignation.

She laid them carefully together, but a bitter sob burst from her at the
sight of the great ragged tears across the beautiful face.

"Oh, mother, mother!" she murmured, "what an insult to you, and I was
powerless to help it."

She finished her packing, then taking the dresses that were to be made
over, and the torn picture, she went below.

She could not bear the thought of having that lovely face, marred though
it was, consigned to the flames, yet she dare not disobey Mrs. Montague's
command to give it to Mary to be burned.

She waited until the girl came up stairs, then she called her attention
to the pieces, and told her what was to be done with them.