must have had among ye're ancestresses in the long ago."

He gripped her hand, and went out to his two-seater, his mind still full
of his friend's strange little son.

Then all at once--he could not have told you why--Dr. O'Farrell's mind
switched off to something very different, and he went back into the hall
again.

"A word more with ye, Mrs. Tosswill. What sort of a lady has taken The
Trellis House, eh? We don't even know her name."

"She's a Mrs. Crofton--oddly enough, a friend or acquaintance of Godfrey
Radmore. He seems to have first met her during the war, when he was
quartered in Egypt. She wrote to John and asked if there was a house to
let in Beechfield, quoting Godfrey as having told her it was a delightful
village."

"And how old may she be?"

"Her husband was a Colonel Crofton, so I suppose she's middle-aged. She's
only been a widow three months--if as long."

Janet Tosswill waited till Dr. O'Farrell was well away, and then she
began walking down the broad corridor which divided Old Place. It was
such a delightful, dignified, spacious house, and very dear to them all,
yet Janet was always debating within herself whether they ought to go on
living in it, now that they had become so poor.

When she came to the last door on the left, close to the baize door