alls
trustee of it all. But then who'd trust anyone with a load o' money? The
chap I'm thinking of used to live at Tosswill's a matter of ten years
ago."

"Then 'tis the same one!" exclaimed the other eagerly, "and, if so,
you'll not lack good things. Likely as not the Major's your future
master. 'E's got plenty, and a generous soul too. Gave me a present last
year when he was a stopping at Fildy Fe Manor. The Major, 'e bought one
of our dawgs, and I sent it off for 'im to Old Place, Beechfield, damn
me if I don't remember it now--name of Tosswill too." He stopped short,
and then, as if he had thought better of what he was going to say, he
observed musingly: "Some says Jack Piper's a blabber--but they don't know
me! But one thing I'll tell you. The're two after the Missus, for all the
Colonel's 'ardly cold, so to speak, but I put my money on the dark one."

He had hardly uttered these cryptic words when a pretty young woman
opened the door which gave on to the stable-yard from the house:
"Dinner-time!" she called out merrily.

Both men dropped the brooms they were holding, and going towards the door
disappeared.

As they did so, Timmy heard the words:--"_She's_ a peach--thinks herself
one too--oh! the merry widder!"

The little boy waited a moment. He took a long look round the sunny, and
now unnaturally tidy, stable-yard. Then he got up, shut his book, and put
it sedately into his pocket. Flick seemed unwilling to move, so Timmy
turned and called sharply:--"Flick! come along at once!"

The dog jumped down and ran up to his master. Timmy walked across the
big, flat, white stones, kicking a pebble as he went. At last, when he
got close to the open gate, he hop-scotched, propelling the pebble far
into the road.

He was extremely disturbed and surprised. He went over and over
again what he had heard the two men say. The absurd suspicion of his
father filled him with angry hurt disgust. Why only yesterday the plan
of the village clubhouse had come from the architect! And then that
extraordinary disconcerting hint about his godfather? Godfrey Radmore
belonged in Timmy's imagination, first to himself, secondly to his
parents, and then, in a much less close way, to the rest of the Tosswill
family. A sensation of strong-dislike to the still unknown new tenant of
The Trellis House welled up in his secretive little heart, and instead of
going on round the village, he turned back and made his way straight
home.

As he w