hing going in this big, rambling old
house, with the help of the old nurse and a day girl from the village.

Timmy gave a little cackle, and Jack felt annoyed. He looked across at
his half-brother with a feeling akin to dislike. But Jack Tosswill was
truly attached to his step-mother. He was old enough to remember what a
change she had made in the then dull, sad, austere Old Place. Janet had
at once thrown herself into the task of being sister, rather than
step-mother, to her husband's children, and bountifully had she succeeded!

Still, with the exception of Betty, they all criticised her severely, in
their hearts, for her weakness where her own child was concerned. And yet
poor Janet never made the slightest difference between Timmy and the
others. It was more the little boy's own clever insistence which got him
his own way, and secured him certain privileges which they, at his age,
had never enjoyed. Timmy also always knew how to manage his delicate,
nervous father. John Tosswill realised that Timmy might some day grow up
to do him credit. Timmy really loved learning, and it was a pleasure to
the scholar to teach his clever, impish, youngest son.

* * * * *

Meanwhile Janet, who had remained on in the drawing-room, got up from the
sofa and, going into the corridor, opened the dining-room door. For some
moments she stood there, unseen, watching the eager party gathered round
the table, and as she did so, she looked with a curious, yearning feeling
at each of the young folk in turn.

How changed, how utterly changed, they all were since Godfrey Radmore had
last been in that familiar room! The least changed, of course, was Betty.
To her step-mother's partial eyes, Betty Tosswill, at twenty-eight, was
still an extraordinarily charming and young-looking creature. Had her
nose been rather less retrousse, her generous, full-lipped mouth just a
little smaller, her brown hair either much darker, or really fair, as was
Rosamund's, she would have been exceptionally pretty. What to the
discriminating made her so much more attractive than either of her
younger sisters was her look of intelligence and quiet humour. But of
course she looked not only older, but different, from what she had looked
nine years ago. Betty had lived a full and, in a sense, a tragic life
during four of the years which had elapsed since she and Radmore had
parted in this very room.

Janet's eyes travelled past Betty to J