s aright, but he followed the example silently set him by all the
others of taking no notice of Timmy's claim both to see and foresee more
than is vouchsafed to the ordinary mortal.

Miss Crofton had also stayed on in Beechfield, but only a day longer than
she had intended to do--that is, till the Tuesday. She and Miss Pendarth
had met more than once, striking up something like a real friendship. But
this, instead of modifying, had intensified Miss Pendarth's growing
prejudice against the new tenant of The Trellis House. She felt convinced
that the pretty young widow had made her kind sister-in-law believe that
she was far poorer, and more to be pitied, than she really was.

Life in an English village is in some ways like a quiet pool--and, just
as the throwing of a pebble into such a pool causes what appears to
create an extraordinary amount of commotion on the surface of the water,
so the advent of any human being who happens to be a little out of the
common produces an amount of discussion, public and private, which might
well seem to those outside the circle of gossip, extravagant, as well as
unnecessary.

The general verdict on Mrs. Crofton had begun by being favourable. Both
with gentle and simple her appealing beauty told in her favour, and very
soon the village people smiled, and looked knowingly at one another, as
they noted the perpetual coming and going of Jack Tosswill to The Trellis
House. No day went by without the young man making some more or less
plausible excuse to call there once, twice, and sometimes thrice.

It was noticed, too, by those interested in such matters--and in
Beechfield they were in the majority--that Mr. Godfrey Radmore, whose
return to Old Place had naturally caused a good deal of talk and
speculation--was also a frequent visitor at The Trellis House. Now and
again he would call there in his car, and take Mrs. Crofton for a long
drive; but they never went out alone--either Dolly or Rosamund, and
invariably Timmy, would be of the party.

As the days went on, each member of the Tosswill family began to have a
definite and, so to speak, crystallised view of Enid Crofton. Rosamund
had become her champion, thus earning for the first time in her life the
warm approval of her brother Jack; but Dolly and Tom grew rather jealous
of their sister's absorption in the stranger. Rosamund was so very often
at The Trellis House. In fact, when Jack was not to be found there,
Rosamund generally was