“That’s very true,” said Miss Crofton finally.

Enid, feeling on sure ground now, went on:  “Why, I had to pay a premium of L200 for the lease of this little house.  But I’m told I could get that again—­even after living for a year or two in it.”

Miss Crofton began looking about her with a doubtful air:  “I suppose you mean to spend the winter here,” she said musingly, “and then let the house each summer?”

“Yes,” said Enid, “that is my idea.”

As a matter of fact, she had never thought of doing such a thing, though she saw the point of it, now that it was put by her sister-in-law.  She hoped, however, that long before next summer her future would be settled on most agreeable lines.

“Then I suppose the balance of what your mother left you forms a little addition to your pension, and to what poor Cecil was able to leave you?”

As the other hesitated, Miss Crofton went on, in a very friendly tone:—­“I hope you won’t think it interfering that I should speak as I am doing?  I expected to find you much less comfortably circumstanced, and I was going to propose that I should increase what I had feared would be a very small income, by two hundred a year.”

Enid was as much touched by this unexpected generosity as it was in her to be, and it was with an accent of real sincerity that she exclaimed:—­“Oh, Alice, you are kind!  Of course two hundred a year would be a great help.  Nothing remains of what my mother left me.  But you must not think that I’m extravagant.  I sold a lot of things, and that made it possible for me to take over The Trellis House exactly as you see it.  But even during the very few days I have been here I have begun to find how expensive life can be, even in a village like this.”

“All right,” said Miss Crofton.  She got up from her easy chair with a quick movement, for she was still a vigorous woman.  “Then that’s settled!  I’ll give you a cheque for L100 to-day—­and one every six months as long that is, as you’re a widow.”  Then she smiled a little satirically, for Enid had made a quick movement of recoil which Alice Crofton thought rather absurd.

“It’s early to think of such a thing, no doubt,” she said coolly.  “But still, I shall be very much surprised, Enid, if you do not re-make your life.  I myself have a dear young friend, very little older than you are, who has been married three times.  The War has altered the views and prejudices even of old-fashioned people.”

“I want to ask you something,” said Enid, “d’you think I ought to tell people that I have already been married twice?”

Miss Crofton told herself quickly that such questions are always put with a definite reason, and that she probably would not be called upon to pay her sister-in-law’s allowance for very long.

“I don’t think you are in the least bound to tell anyone such a fact about yourself, unless”—­she hesitated,—­“you were seriously thinking of marrying again.  In such a case as that I think you would be well advised, Enid, to tell the man in question the fact before you become obliged to reveal it to him.”