* * * * *

On and on sped the party in the motor, Timmy sitting by his godfather in front, Betty, in lonely state, behind.

They hadn’t gone very far before the countryside began to have all the charm of strangeness to Betty Tosswill, and she found herself enjoying the change of scene as only a person who has been cooped up in one familiar place for a considerable time can enjoy it.

“Why, we must be on the borders of Sussex!” she called out, at a point where Radmore, slowing down, was consulting a sign-post.  He turned round and nodded.

They started again.  And then something rather absurd happened.  Betty’s hat blew off!  It was an ordinary, rather floppy hat, and she had tied it on, as she thought, securely with a veil under her chin.

Both Timmy and Radmore jumped out to pick the hat up, and as they came back towards the car, Timmy exclaimed:  “It’s a shame that Betty hasn’t got a proper motor bonnet!  Rosamund’s got a lovely one.”

“Why hasn’t Betty got one?”

“Because they’re so expensive,” said Timmy simply.  He went on, “When I’ve got lots of money, I shall give Betty heaps of beautiful clothes; but only one very plain dress apiece to Rosamund and Dolly.”

“Betty!  You ought to have a motor bonnet,” called out Radmore as he came up to the car.

Her fair hair, blowing in the wind, formed an aureole round her face.  She looked very, very different to the staid Betty of Old Place.

She answered merrily:  “So I will when my ship comes home!  I had one before the War, and I stupidly gave it away.”

“Surely we might get one somewhere to-day,” suggested Radmore.

“Get one to-day—­what an extraordinary idea?  Motor bonnets don’t grow on hedges—­”

But when they were going through—­was it Horsham?—­Radmore, alone of the three, espied a funny little shop.  It was called “The Bandbox”:  its woodwork was painted bright green, and in the window were three hats.

“Now then,” he exclaimed, slowing down, “this, I take it, is where motor bonnets grow.  At any rate we’ll get down and see.”

“What a lark!” cried Timmy delightedly.  “Please, please Betty, don’t make yourself disagreeable—­don’t be a ’govvey’!”

And Betty, not wishing to be a “govvey,” got out of the car.

“But I’ve no money with me,” she began.

“I wouldn’t let you pay for what’s going to be a present,” said Radmore shortly.  “You’re the only inhabitant of Old Place to whom I haven’t given a present since I’ve been home.”

Home?  It gave Betty such pleasure to hear him call it that.

They all three marched into the tiny shop where the owner of “The Bandbox,” described by Timmy to his mother, later, as a “rather spidery-looking, real lady,” sat sewing.

She received them with a mixture of condescension and pleasure at the thought of a new customer, which diverted Radmore, who was new to the phenomenon of the lady shopkeeper.  But when it came to business, she took a very great deal of trouble, bringing out what seemed, at the time, the whole of her considerable stock, for “The Bandbox” was cleverly lined with deep, dust-proof cupboards.