shut him up."

"Why can't Flick go with you?"

"Mum! Don't you remember? Mrs. Crofton is _terrified_ of dogs. Do let
Jack take it!"

"But are you sure Jack is going there this morning?" she asked, and then
she remembered Miss Pendarth's ill-natured remark.

"He goes there every morning," said Timmy positively, "and this morning
he's going there extra early, as he's lending Mrs. Crofton our best
preserving pan. She wants to make some blackberry jam."

And then there occurred one of those odd incidents which were always
happening in connection with Timmy and with which his mother never knew
quite how to deal. He screwed up his queer little face for a moment,
shaded his eyes with his hand, and said quietly: "I think Jack is just
starting down the drive now. You'll catch him if you'll open the window
and shout to him, Mum--it's no good my going after him--he wouldn't come
back for _me_."

Janet Tosswill got up from her writing-table. She opened the nearest
window and, stepping out, looked to her right. Yes, there was Jack's
neat, compact figure sprinting down the long, straight avenue towards the
gate. He was holding a queer-looking, badly done up parcel in his hands.

"Jack! Jack! Come here for a minute--I want you," she called out in her
clear, rather high-pitched voice.

He slackened, and it was as if she could see him hesitating, wondering
whether he dare pretend he had not heard her. Then he turned and ran back
down the drive and across the wide lawn to the window.

"What is it?" he asked breathlessly. "I'm late as it is! I'm taking one
of our preserving pans to The Trellis House. The fruit was all picked
yesterday."

"I won't be a moment. I want you to take a letter for me to Mrs. Crofton.
I'm asking her to come in to dinner to-night."

She turned back into the room and, sitting down, took up her pen: "Timmy?
Go into the scullery, and help Betty for a bit."

After her little son had left the room, she called out to Jack, "Do come
inside; it fidgets me to feel that you're standing out there."

After what seemed to Jack Tosswill a long time, though it was only three
minutes, his step-mother turned, and held out her note: "She needn't
write--a verbal answer will do. If she can't come we shall have done the
civil thing."

And then, thinking aloud, she went on: "Somehow I don't expect her to
stay long in Beechfield. She's too much of a London bird."

"I don't suppose she would have come at all if she had