why the disagreeable little fellow had asked such an
indiscreet question.

Then, reluctantly, she made up her mind she had better answer it truly:
"I saw him the day before yesterday." She forced herself to go on
lightly. "I suppose you're the young gentleman to whom he sent a
puppy last year?"

He nodded, and then asked another disconcerting question: "Did you leave
your dog outside? Dolly thought you didn't like dogs, so my terrier,
Flick, has been shut up in the stable. I suppose you only like your own
dog--I'm rather like that, too."

"I haven't got a dog," she answered nervously. "It's quite true that I
don't like dogs--or, rather, I should like them if they liked me, but
they don't."

"Then the dog that was with you belonged to the old gentleman?"

"Old gentleman?" repeated Mrs. Crofton vaguely. This time she didn't in
the least know what the child was talking about, and she was relieved
when the door opened, and the Tosswill family came streaming through
it, accompanied by their step-mother.

Laughing introductions took place. Mrs. Crofton singled out instinctively
her gentle, cultivated-looking host. She told herself with a queer sense
of relief, that he was the sort of man who generally shows a distantly
chivalrous regard for women. Next to her host, his eldest son, Jack
Tosswill, came in for secret, close scrutiny, but Enid Crofton always
found it easy and more than easy, to "make friends" with a young man.

She realised that she was up against a more difficult problem in the
ladies of the family. She felt a little frightened of Mrs. Tosswill, of
whom Godfrey Radmore had spoken with such affection and gratitude. Janet
looked what Mrs. Crofton called "clever," and somehow she never got on
with clever women. Betty and Dolly she dismissed as of no account.
Rosamund was the one the attractive stranger liked best. There is no
greater mistake than to think that a pretty woman does not like to meet
another pretty woman. On the contrary, "like flies to like" in this, as
in almost everything else.

But how did they regard her? She would have been surprised indeed had she
been able to see into their hearts.

Mr. Tosswill, who was much more wideawake than he looked, thought her
a poor exchange for the amusing, lively, middle-aged woman who had
last lived at The Trellis House, and who had often entertained there a
pleasant, cultivated guest or two from London. Jack, though sufficiently
human to be attracted by