. But she had soon discovered that her new friend
preferred to see her visitors singly. Betty kept her thoughts as to Mrs.
Crofton to herself--for one thing the two very seldom met. But Janet
Tosswill was more frank. With her, tepid liking had turned into dislike,
and when she alluded to the pretty widow, which was not often, she would
tersely describe her as "second-rate."

Now there is no word in the English language more deadly in its vague
import than that apparently harmless adjective. As applied to a human
being, it generally conveys every kind of odious significance, and
curiously enough it is seldom applied without good reason.

Mrs. Crofton had gentle, pretty manners, but her manner lacked sincerity.
She was not content to leave her real beauty of colouring and feature to
take care of itself; her eye-brows were "touched up," and when she
fancied herself to be "off colour" she would put on a suspicion of rouge.
But what perhaps unduly irritated the mistress of Old Place were Mrs.
Crofton's clothes! To such shrewd, feminine eyes as were Janet
Tosswill's, it was plain that the new tenant of The Trellis House had
taken as much pains over her widow's mourning as a coquettish bride takes
over her trousseau.

Janet Tosswill was far too busy a woman to indulge in the village game
of constant informal calls on her neighbours. She left all that sort of
thing to her younger step-daughters; and as Mrs. Crofton never came to
Old Place--making her nervous fear of the dogs the excuse--Janet only saw
the new tenant of The Trellis House when she happened to be walking about
the village or at church.

But for a while, at any rate, an untoward event drove the thoughts
of most of the inmates of Old Place far from Mrs. Crofton and her
peculiarities, attractive or other.

* * * * *

One day, when Radmore had already been at Beechfield for close on a
fortnight, Timmy drew him aside, and said mysteriously: "Godfrey, I want
to tell you something."

Radmore looked down and said pleasantly, though with a queer inward
foreboding in his mind: "Go ahead, boy--I'm listening."

"Something's going to happen to someone here. I saw Dr. O'Farrell last
night, I mean in a dream. You were driving him in your car through our
gate. Last time I dreamt about him Dolly had measles; she was awfully
ill; she nearly died."

As he spoke, Timmy kept looking round, as if afraid of being overheard.
"I don't mean to tell