ther's
making her wait till she's twenty-one."

"Let me see," he said hesitatingly, "Dolly's older than Jack, isn't she?"

"Oh, no. Dolly will only be twenty next Thursday."

There came over her an overwhelming impulse to tell him something--the
sort of thing she could only have told George.

"You know that pretty old church at Oakford?"

He nodded.

"Well, Mr. Runsby is dead. They've got a bachelor clergyman now, and
Janet and I think that he's becoming very fond of Dolly! He's away just
now, or you would have already seen him. He's very often over here."

"I should have thought--" He hesitated in his turn, but already he was
falling again into the way of saying exactly what he thought right out to
Betty--"that with you and Rosamund in the house, no one would look at
Dolly!"

Betty blushed, and for a fleeting moment Godfrey saw the blushing,
dimpling Betty of long ago.

"Rosamund has the utmost contempt for him. As for me, he never sees
me--I'm always in the kitchen when he comes here." She added with a touch
of the quiet humour he remembered, "I don't think Dolly's in any danger
from me!"

"_Why_ are you always in the kitchen, Betty?" he asked. "Is it really
necessary?"

"Yes, it really is necessary," she answered frankly. "Father's got much
poorer, and everything's about a hundred times as dear as it was before
the War. But you mustn't think that I mind. I like it in a way--and it
won't last for ever. Some of father's investments are beginning to
recover a little even now, and prices are coming down--"

They had now come back to the garden end of the Long Walk. "I must go
now," she said. "Would you like me to send out one of the girls to
entertain you?"

He shook his head. "No, I think I'll stroll about the village for a bit."

They both felt as if the first milestone of their new relationship had
been set deep in the earth, and both were glad and relieved that it was
so.

Radmore walked about a bit, admiring Janet's autumnal herbaceous borders,
and then he remembered a door that he had known of old which led from the
big kitchen garden into the road. If it was open he could step out
without walking across the front of the house.

He turned into the walled garden, and walked quickly down a well-kept
path past the sun-dial to the door. It was open. He walked through it,
and then, with a rather guilty feeling--a feeling he did not care to
analyse--he made his way round the lower half of the village