As the days went on, each member of the Tosswill family began to have a definite and, so to speak, crystallised view of Enid Crofton.  Rosamund had become her champion, thus earning for the first time in her life the warm approval of her brother Jack; but Dolly and Tom grew rather jealous of their sister’s absorption in the stranger.  Rosamund was so very often at The Trellis House.  In fact, when Jack was not to be found there, Rosamund generally was.  But she had soon discovered that her new friend preferred to see her visitors singly.  Betty kept her thoughts as to Mrs. Crofton to herself—­for one thing the two very seldom met.  But Janet Tosswill was more frank.  With her, tepid liking had turned into dislike, and when she alluded to the pretty widow, which was not often, she would tersely describe her as “second-rate.”

Now there is no word in the English language more deadly in its vague import than that apparently harmless adjective.  As applied to a human being, it generally conveys every kind of odious significance, and curiously enough it is seldom applied without good reason.

Mrs. Crofton had gentle, pretty manners, but her manner lacked sincerity.  She was not content to leave her real beauty of colouring and feature to take care of itself; her eye-brows were “touched up,” and when she fancied herself to be “off colour” she would put on a suspicion of rouge.  But what perhaps unduly irritated the mistress of Old Place were Mrs. Crofton’s clothes!  To such shrewd, feminine eyes as were Janet Tosswill’s, it was plain that the new tenant of The Trellis House had taken as much pains over her widow’s mourning as a coquettish bride takes over her trousseau.

Janet Tosswill was far too busy a woman to indulge in the village game of constant informal calls on her neighbours.  She left all that sort of thing to her younger step-daughters; and as Mrs. Crofton never came to Old Place—­making her nervous fear of the dogs the excuse—­Janet only saw the new tenant of The Trellis House when she happened to be walking about the village or at church.

But for a while, at any rate, an untoward event drove the thoughts of most of the inmates of Old Place far from Mrs. Crofton and her peculiarities, attractive or other.

* * * * *

One day, when Radmore had already been at Beechfield for close on a fortnight, Timmy drew him aside, and said mysteriously:  “Godfrey, I want to tell you something.”

Radmore looked down and said pleasantly, though with a queer inward foreboding in his mind:  “Go ahead, boy—­I’m listening.”

“Something’s going to happen to someone here.  I saw Dr. O’Farrell last night, I mean in a dream.  You were driving him in your car through our gate.  Last time I dreamt about him Dolly had measles; she was awfully ill; she nearly died.”

As he spoke, Timmy kept looking round, as if afraid of being overheard.  “I don’t mean to tell anyone else,” he added confidentially.  “You see it upsets Mum, and makes the others cross, if I say things like that.  But still, I just thought I’d tell you.”