le
on her face.

"I suppose I ought to help them," he said without enthusiasm. "But I'll
go and have a bath now. You'll let me be your scullion when you're
getting lunch ready, eh, Betty?" He added hastily, "I think Timmy ought
to stay in bed all day to-day. You _will_ let me take the place of Timmy,
won't you, Betty?"

"That will be very kind of you," she replied demurely. And then, before
she could say a word of protest, he had taken the heavy tray out of her
hands. "You'll find me much more useful than Timmy," he said, with a
touch of his old masterfulness. "Now you lead the way up, and I'll hand
you over the tray at Nanna's door."

CHAPTER XXI

Some three or four hours later, Miss Pendarth, attired in a queer kind
of brown smock which fell in long folds about her tall, still elegant
figure, and with a gardening basket slung over her arm, stood by the
glass door giving into her garden, when suddenly she heard a loud double
knock on her stout, early Victorian knocker.

She turned quickly into her morning room. Who could it be? She knew the
knock and ring of each of her neighbours, and this was none of them.

Her maid hurried out of the kitchen, and a moment later she heard a man's
voice exclaim: "Will you kindly give this note to Miss Pendarth? I will
return for the answer in about an hour."

Miss Pendarth knew the voice, and, stepping out of her morning room, she
called out: "Come in just for a few minutes, Mr. Radmore."

In the old days she had always called him "Godfrey," but when Timmy had
brought him to call within a day or two of his return to Beechfield, she
had used the formal mode of address.

Radmore had to obey her, willy-nilly, and as he came down the hall
towards her, she was struck by the keenness and intelligence of his
dark face. She told herself grudgingly that he had certainly improved
amazingly, at any rate in outward appearance, during the last ten years.

"Do let us go into your garden," he said courteously. "I hear that you
are still Mrs. Tosswill's only rival!"

She softened, in spite of herself. The Godfrey Radmore of ten years ago
would not have thought of saying such a civil, pleasant thing.

They walked through the glass door, and proceeded in silence down the
path. The herbaceous borders were in fuller beauty than anything the Old
Place garden could now show, but Radmore paid no further compliment, and
it was she who broke the silence.

"You must see amazing changes