, but now I
know they have. I know another thing, too," but there was a doubtful note
in his voice. "I suppose that ghost-dog hates Mrs. Crofton because she
was so unkind to his master. That's why he makes the other dogs fly at
her, I expect--or d'you think it's just because they're frightened that
they do it?"

Janet Tosswill was an unconventional woman, also she was on terms of very
close kinship with her strange little son. Still, she reddened as she
drew him closer to her and said: "Look here, Timmy, I want to tell you
something. I'm sorry now I said what I did say to Jack about Mrs.
Crofton. I ought not to have said it--I'm ashamed of having said it! It
was told me by someone who is rather fond of repeating disagreeable,
sometimes even untrue, things."

Timmy had also grown very red while his mother was making her little
confession. He took up her hand and squeezed it impulsively, as an older
person might have done.

"I think I know who you mean," he said. "You mean Miss Pendarth?"

"Yes," said his mother steadily, "I do mean Miss Pendarth. I think it
quite possible that poor little Mrs. Crofton was never really unkind to
Colonel Crofton at all."

"But you wouldn't like Jack to marry her, Mum, would you?"

Janet felt a shock of dismay go through her. There flashed into her mind
that sometimes most disturbing text--"Out of the mouths of babes and
sucklings...."

"I shouldn't like it at all," she exclaimed, "and I think you're old
enough to understand that such a thing would be impossible. Jack won't
make enough money to keep a wife for years and years." She hesitated, and
then added, speaking to herself rather than to Timmy, "Still, I hope with
all my heart that he won't get foolish about her."

"He _is_ foolish about her," said Timmy positively. "Even Nanna
thinks"--he waited a moment, then said carefully--"that he is past
praying for. She said yesterday to Betty that there were some things
prayers didn't help in at all, and that love was one of them. She says
that Jack's heart has gone out of his own keeping. Isn't that a funny
idea, Mum?"

"It is a terrible idea," and, a little to her own surprise, tears rose to
Janet Tosswill's eyes. Timmy, looking up into her face, felt his heart
swell with anger against the person who was causing his mother to look as
she was looking now.

He moved away a little bit, as if aware that what he was going to say
would not meet with her approval, and then he said in a