“Her cook didn’t turn up,” exclaimed Dolly.  “And when she asked me if I knew of any woman in the village who could come in and cook dinner for her this evening, I said I was sure Janet would like her to come in and have supper.”

“And I hope,” chimed in Rosamund decidedly, “that we shall all dress for dinner.  Why should she think us a hugger-mugger family?”

“I don’t mean to change.  I shall only wash my hands!” This from Timmy, who was always allowed to sit up to dinner.  His brothers and sisters were too fond of their step-mother to say how absurdly uncalled-for they thought this privilege.

As everyone pretended not to have heard his remark, Timmy repeated obstinately:  “I shall only wash my hands.”

“Mrs. Crofton won’t care how you look,” observed Jack irritably.  “If we didn’t now live in such a huggery-muggery way, I should always dress.  I do everywhere else.”

Betty looked at him, and her face deadened.  Though she would hardly have admitted it, even to herself, she regretted the way in which everything at Old Place was now allowed to go “slack.”  She knew it to be bad for her sisters.  It wasn’t as if they did any real housework or gave useful help in the kitchen.  Dolly tried to do so in a desultory way, but in the end it was she, Betty, who kept everything going in this big, rambling old house, with the help of the old nurse and a day girl from the village.

Timmy gave a little cackle, and Jack felt annoyed.  He looked across at his half-brother with a feeling akin to dislike.  But Jack Tosswill was truly attached to his step-mother.  He was old enough to remember what a change she had made in the then dull, sad, austere Old Place.  Janet had at once thrown herself into the task of being sister, rather than step-mother, to her husband’s children, and bountifully had she succeeded!

Still, with the exception of Betty, they all criticised her severely, in their hearts, for her weakness where her own child was concerned.  And yet poor Janet never made the slightest difference between Timmy and the others.  It was more the little boy’s own clever insistence which got him his own way, and secured him certain privileges which they, at his age, had never enjoyed.  Timmy also always knew how to manage his delicate, nervous father.  John Tosswill realised that Timmy might some day grow up to do him credit.  Timmy really loved learning, and it was a pleasure to the scholar to teach his clever, impish, youngest son.

* * * * *

Meanwhile Janet, who had remained on in the drawing-room, got up from the sofa and, going into the corridor, opened the dining-room door.  For some moments she stood there, unseen, watching the eager party gathered round the table, and as she did so, she looked with a curious, yearning feeling at each of the young folk in turn.