ally
short, rough, untidy hair well brushed, whistling softly to himself.

He was longing intensely for his godfather's arrival, and it seemed such
a long time off to Friday. A photograph of Radmore, in uniform, sent him
at his own request two years ago, was the boy's most precious personal
possession. Timmy was a careful, almost uncannily thrifty child, with
quite a lot of money in the Savings Bank, but he had taken out 10/- in
order to buy a frame for the photograph, and it rested, alone in its
glory, on the top of the chest of drawers that stood opposite his bed.

There had been a time when Timmy had hoped that he would grow up to
look like his godfather, but now he was aware that this hope would
never be fulfilled, for Radmore, in this photograph, at any rate, had
a strongly-featured, handsome face, very unlike what his mother had once
called "Timmy's wizened little phiz."

It seemed strange to care for a person you had never seen since you were
a tiny child--but there it was! To Timmy everything that touched his
godfather was of far greater moment than he would have admitted to
anyone. Radmore was his secret hero; and now, to-night, he asked himself
painfully, why had his hero left off loving Betty? The story he had
overheard this afternoon had deeply impressed him. For the first time he
began to dimly apprehend the strange and piteous tangle we call life.

Suddenly there broke on the still autumn air the distant sound of sharp
barks and piteous whines. Much against his will, the little boy had had
to bow to the edict that Flick should be shut up in the stable. Dolly,
who so seldom bothered about anything, had seen to this herself, because
Mrs. Crofton, who was coming to supper, hated dogs. Timmy inhospitably
hoped that the new tenant of The Trellis House would very seldom honour
Old Place with a visit. It would be impossible for them always to hide
Flick away like this!

He moved further into the pretty, old-fashioned room. Like most
old-fashioned country drawing-rooms of the kind, it was rather over-full
of furniture and ornaments. The piano jutted out at right angles to a
big, roomy sofa, which could, at a pinch, hold seven or eight people, the
pinch usually being when, for the benefit of Timmy, the sofa was supposed
to be a stage coach of long ago on its way to London. The Tosswills had
been great people for private theatricals, charades, and so on--Timmy's
own mother being a really good actress and an exce