"Has anything happened to her? I saw her the other day and she was all right." "She's quite well, but haven't you heard? She has inherited a large fortune." Mrs. Duff-Whalley said nothing for a minute. She could not trust herself to speak. Despised Jean, whom she had not troubled to ask to her parties, whom she had always felt she could treat anyhow, so poor was she and of no account. It had been bad enough to know that she was on terms of intimacy with Pamela Reston and her brother: to hear Miss Reston say that she meant to take her to London and entertain for her and to hear her suggest that Muriel might go to Jean's parties had been galling, but she had thrust the recollection from her, reflecting that fine ladies said much that they did not mean, and that probably the promised visit to London would never materialise. And now to be told this! A fortune: Jean--it was too absurd! When she spoke, her voice was shrill with anger in spite of her efforts to control it. "It can't be true. The Jardines have no relations that could leave them money." "This isn't a relation," Mrs. Jowett explained. "It's someone Jean was kind to quite by chance. I think it is _so_ sweet. It quite makes one want to cry. _Dear_ Jean!" Mrs. Duff-Whalley looked at the sentimental woman before her with bitter scorn. "It would take more than that to make me cry," she snorted. "I wonder what fool wanted to leave Jean money. Such an unpractical creature! She'll simply make ducks and drakes of it, give it away to all and sundry, pauperise the whole neighbourhood." "Oh, I don't think so," Miss Duncan broke in. "She has had a hard training, poor child. Such a pathetic mite she was when her great-aunt died and left her with David and Jock and the little Gervase Taunton! No one thought she could manage, but she did, and she has been so plucky, she deserves all the good fortune that life can bring her. I'm longing to hear what Jock says about this. I do like that boy." "They are, all three, dear boys," said Mrs. Jowett. "Tim and I quite feel as if they were our own. Tim, dear," to that gentleman, who had bounced suddenly and violently into the room, "we are talking about the great news--Jean's fortune--"