Which shut off the commons from the living rooms, she waited a moment.
Then, turning the handle, she walked into what was still called the
schoolroom, though Timmy never did his lessons there.

Betty Tosswill, the eldest of John Tosswill's three daughters, was
sitting at a big mid-Victorian writing-table, examining the house-books.
She had just discovered two "mistakes" in the milkman's account, and she
felt perhaps unreasonably sorry and annoyed. Betty had a generous,
unsuspicious outlook on human nature, and a meeting with petty dishonesty
was always a surprise. She looked up with a very friendly, welcoming
smile as her step-mother came into the room. They were very good friends,
these two, and they had a curiously close bond in Timmy, the only child
of the one and the half-brother of the other. Betty was now twenty-eight
and there were only two persons in the world whom she had loved in her
life as well as she now loved her little brother.

As her step-mother came close up to her--"Janet? What's the matter?"
she exclaimed, and as the other made no answer, a look of fear came
over the girl's face. She got up from her chair. "Don't look like that,
Janet,--you're frightening me!"

The older woman tried to smile. "To tell the truth, Betty, I've had
rather a shock. You heard the telephone bell ring?"

"You mean some minutes ago?"

"Yes."

"Who was it?"