f she could have got them, she could not now
have paid them. Then there had been the silly, vulgar but highly
dangerous affair between Rosamund and their too attractive married
"billet". Had Betty been at home that business would almost certainly
have been checked in the bud. As for Dolly, she was worse than no good in
the home. But--a certain secret hope was cherished both by Janet and by
Betty concerning Dolly. The bachelor vicar of the next parish seemed to
find a strange pleasure in her society. He was away now in Switzerland
and he had written to Dolly a minute account of his long, tiresome
journey.

She wondered, with a feeling of pain at her heart, what Godfrey would
think of them all. There had been such an air of charm and gaiety about
the place nine years ago. Now, beautiful in a sense as was the stately
Georgian house, lovely as was the garden, thanks to Janet's cleverness
and hard work, there was an air of shabbiness over everything though
Betty only fully realised it on the very rare occasions when she got away
for a few days for a change and rest with old friends.

This summer her brother Jack had said a word to her, not exactly
complainingly, but with a sort of regret. "Don't you think we could
afford new furniture covers for the drawing-room?" and Betty had shaken
her head. They could afford _nothing_ for the house--she alone knew how
very difficult it was to keep up Jack's own modest allowance.

There had been a discussion between herself and Janet as to whether Mr.
Tosswill should start taking pupils again in his old age, but they had
decided against it, largely because they felt that the class of pupils
whom he had been accustomed to take before the war, and who could alone
be of any use from the financial point of view, could not now be made
really comfortable at Old Place. Betty was ashamed of feeling how much it
hurt her pride to know how concerned Godfrey would be to find how poor
they had become. She would not have minded this if he had been poor
himself. But she hated the thought of a rich Godfrey, who flung money
about over foolish, extravagant presents, discovering, suddenly, how
altered were their circumstances since the day when he had rushed out
of the house throwing the big cheque kind John Tosswill had shamefacedly
handed to him, on to the floor.

* * * * *

After Betty had had her own cold bath, and had prepared a tepid one for
her father, she dressed