w!" exclaimed Rosamund.

"He rushed down here," went on Jack, "to say that he had made up his
mind to go to Australia. And he was simply amazed when father and Janet
wouldn't hear of Betty going with him."

"Would she have liked to go?" asked Tom.

"Well, yes--I believe she would. But of course it was out of the
question. Father could have given her nothing, even then, so how could
they have lived? There was a fearful rumpus, and in the end Godfrey went
off in a tearing rage."

"Shaking the dust of Old Place off his indignant feet, eh?" suggested
Tom.

"Yes, all that sort of thing. George was having scarlet fever--in a
London hospital--so of course he was quite out of it."

"Then, at last Godfrey reopened communication via Timmy?" suggested the
younger boy.

"Timmy's got the letter still," chimed in Rosamund. "I saw it in his
play-box the other day. It was rather a funny letter--I read it."

"The devil you did!" from Tom, indignantly.

She went on unruffled:--"He said he'd been left a fortune, and wanted to
share it with his godson. How much did he send? D'you remember?" She
looked round.

"Five pounds!" said Dolly.

"I wish _I_ was his godson," said Tom.

"And then," went on Dolly, in her precise way, "the War came, and nothing
more happened till suddenly he wrote again to Timmy from Egypt, and then
began the presents. I wonder if we ought to have thanked him for them?
After all, we don't _know_ that they came from him. The only present we
_know_ came from him was Flick."

"And a damned silly present, too!" observed Jack, drily.

"Do you think he's still in love with Betty?" asked Rosamund.

"Of course he's not. If he was, he would have written to her, not to
Timmy. Nine years is a long time in a man's life," observed Jack
sententiously.

"My hat! yes!" exclaimed Tom. "Poor Betty!"

Jack got up, and made a movement as if he were thinking of going out
through the window into the garden. So Timmy, with a swift, sinuous
movement, withdrew from the curtain, and edging up against the outside
wall of the house, walked unobtrusively back into the drawing-room.

When his mother--who had gone out to find something for Betty to take
into the village--came back, she was pleased and surprised to find her
little son working away as if for dear life.

CHAPTER V

Close on eight that same evening, Timmy Tosswill stood by the open centre
window of the long drawing-room, hands duly washed, and his gener