tmas, and she has an
idea that the little real silver teapot she got on her birthday came from
you too. It has on it 'A Present for a Good Girl.'"

* * * * *

As Radmore followed Timmy up the once familiar staircase, he felt
extraordinarily moved.

How strange the thought that while not only his own life, but the lives
of all the people with whom he had been so intimately associated, had
changed--this old house had remained absolutely unaltered! Nothing had
been added--as far as he could see--and nothing taken away, and yet the
human atmosphere was quite other than what it had been ten years ago.

Just now, in the moment of meeting, he had avoided asking Betty about
George. Betty's twin had been away at the time of Radmore's break with
Old Place--away in a sense which in our civilised days can only be
brought about by one thing, an infectious illness. At the time the
agonising debate was going on at Beechfield, he had been in a fever
hospital close on a month, and they were none of them to see him for
three more weeks. It had been at once a pain and a relief that he should
not be there--yet what good could a boy of nineteen have done?

As to what had happened to George afterwards, Radmore knew nothing. He
believed that his friend had joined the Indian Civil Service. From
childhood George had always intended to make his career in India, his
maternal forebears having all been in the service of John Company.

During the last few days Radmore had thought a great deal of George,
wondering what had happened to him during the war--whether, for instance,
he had at last managed, as did so many Anglo-Indian officials, to get
leave to join the Army? At one moment, before it had entered into his
mind to write to his little godson, he had thought of opening up
communications through George. But he had rejected the notion. The break
had been so complete, and George, after all, was so closely connected
with Betty! Considering that he had not mentioned Betty's brother, either
when speaking to Janet on the telephone two or three days ago, or again
just when he had made his unconventional re-entry into Old Place, it was
odd how the thought of Betty's twin haunted him as he followed his little
guide upstairs. Odd? No, in a sense very natural, for he and George often
raced each other up these very stairs. They had been such pals in spite
of the four years' difference between them.

Radmore and Timmy we