In relation to the two younger girls, his attitude was far more that of a good-natured, rather cynical, elder brother than was his attitude to Betty.  Into her special department, the kitchen, he seldom intruded, though when he did so it was to real purpose.  Thus, Dolly’s twentieth birthday was made by him the excuse for ordering from a famous London caterer a hamper containing enough cold and half-cooked food to keep them junketing for two or three days.  Janet was rather puzzled to note that Betty, alone of them all, seemed to look askance at the way Radmore spent his substance in showering fairy-godfather-like gifts on the inmates of Old Place.

The happiest of them all was Timmy.  Most men would have been bored by having so much of a child’s company, but Radmore was touched and flattered by the boy’s devotion, and that though there was a side of his godson which puzzled and disturbed him.  Now and again Timmy would say something which made Radmore wonder for a moment if he had heard the words aright, but he followed the example silently set him by all the others of taking no notice of Timmy’s claim both to see and foresee more than is vouchsafed to the ordinary mortal.

Miss Crofton had also stayed on in Beechfield, but only a day longer than she had intended to do—­that is, till the Tuesday.  She and Miss Pendarth had met more than once, striking up something like a real friendship.  But this, instead of modifying, had intensified Miss Pendarth’s growing prejudice against the new tenant of The Trellis House.  She felt convinced that the pretty young widow had made her kind sister-in-law believe that she was far poorer, and more to be pitied, than she really was.

Life in an English village is in some ways like a quiet pool—­and, just as the throwing of a pebble into such a pool causes what appears to create an extraordinary amount of commotion on the surface of the water, so the advent of any human being who happens to be a little out of the common produces an amount of discussion, public and private, which might well seem to those outside the circle of gossip, extravagant, as well as unnecessary.

The general verdict on Mrs. Crofton had begun by being favourable.  Both with gentle and simple her appealing beauty told in her favour, and very soon the village people smiled, and looked knowingly at one another, as they noted the perpetual coming and going of Jack Tosswill to The Trellis House.  No day went by without the young man making some more or less plausible excuse to call there once, twice, and sometimes thrice.

It was noticed, too, by those interested in such matters—­and in Beechfield they were in the majority—­that Mr. Godfrey Radmore, whose return to Old Place had naturally caused a good deal of talk and speculation—­was also a frequent visitor at The Trellis House.  Now and again he would call there in his car, and take Mrs. Crofton for a long drive; but they never went out alone—­either Dolly or Rosamund, and invariably Timmy, would be of the party.