"Well, we'll give her the chance at any rate," agreed Mrs. Watson. "I hope her mother won't be stupid and refuse to let her come. I think I'd better send a formal invitation." The note was duly written and dispatched. Mrs. Reynolds appeared to need some days to think the matter over, but finally sent a formal acceptance. "Hooray!" triumphed Daphne. "I quite expected she was going to decline with thanks. Muvvie, how glad I am that you're a nice, sensible person, and not morbid! You'd have been such a trial to us if you'd always gone about with an air of depressed resignation." "I've had my troubles as well as other people," said Mrs. Watson. "It certainly doesn't make them any better to mourn over them. We've got to sit up and make the best of things as they are. 'Never say die!' is a good old motto. I'd try to be chirpy and cheery if I were reduced to a wooden leg and a glass eye!" "So you would, Muvvie darling! I believe you'd dance a jig with a crutch. But about Pamela----" "We'll give her a good time when she comes, poor child!" The warm-hearted Watsons were determined to make Pamela thoroughly welcome, and they succeeded royally. She was painfully shy for the first ten minutes, and answered all questions in embarrassed monosyllables, but after a walk round the garden she began to thaw, by the end of tea she had waxed expansive, and later on she proved downright amusing. By the time the family, in a body, escorted her home, they felt that they had sealed a friendship. They talked her over on the way back. "She's sporty," decided David. "Decent as far as girls go," qualified Anthony, who at twelve did not yield readily to feminine attractions. "I call her charming," said Daphne. "You can see she's plenty in her--not one of those lackadaisical people like Ella Simpson, who just put on side. It seems to me a most monstrous thing that her uncle should have been able to take all the property." "Collared the lot!" grunted David. "The old Hun!" "Mrs. Garside told me that everybody said Squire Reynolds must have made a later will--the butler and coachman remembered signing something. But it couldn't be found." "Likely enough old Hockheimer suppressed it. He'd be equal to any dirty German trick!" suggested Anthony. "If he has he deserves penal servitude." "I'd prefer shooting for him," said Anthony grimly.