They shook hands at the field path to the vicarage, and Eunice went up the hill hand-in-hand with Marjorie, whom Henry had never deigned to notice. She looked back when a few hundred yards had been covered, but the young man was stepping briskly after his father and his two younger sisters, who had gone ahead. "How Eunice Lyndon has improved," said Henry to Dora when they sat at dinner. "Isn't she bright? I think she is the sweetest girl I know." "But you don't know many, Dora." "She's made a wonnerful change on the passon. An' it was all my own idea," Edward John declared with satisfaction, as he scooped up a mouthful of green peas with his knife. "Her mother--poor thing--died o' consumption," Mrs. Charles remarked, and sighed as though she were placing a wreath on Eunice's coffin. "But she's the very picture of health, mother," Henry protested. "Still, there's consumption in the family," she murmured. "Nothing to do with her case. Doctors are now giving up the idea that the disease is hereditary," Henry said, with unnecessary emphasis, as it seemed to Edward John. "But doctors don't know everythink, 'Enry, my boy," his father remarked. "And neither do mothers." Whereat one of them sighed again. The meal went on in silence for a while, and the pudding was at vanishing point when Henry broke into talk again. "By the way, Dora, did I ever tell you that the Wintons have come to Laysford? You remember them? My old friends at Wheelton." "You never mentioned it." "Funny that I had forgotten. Edgar joined the _Leader_ nearly six months ago as second reporter, and the whole family have removed to Laysford, when Mr. Winton got a post as cashier in a large hosiery factory." "There was a sister, I think?" "Yes; Flo--a jolly, dashing sort of girl." "Pretty?" "Extremely! One of your blonde beauties. Almost as tall as I am, and nearly my age." "Indeed!" "A fine puddin', mother, but just a trifle too many o' them sultanas," said Edward John. Mrs. Charles sighed once more. CHAPTER XI ONE'S FOLLY, ANOTHER'S OPPORTUNITY WHEN Henry's holiday had ended and he stepped once again into the outer darkness that lay beyond Hampton Bagot, the words of his which kept ringing like alarm-bells in the ears of his mother and Dora were: "Flo--a jolly, dashing sort of girl." They had been spoken once only; but that was enough. The essential woman in his mother and sister pounced on them like a cat on a mouse peeping from its hole. They turned the phrase over in their mind, put it away, took it down, pecked at it; tossed it afar, and ran after it forthwith, wishful to forget it, but unable to let it go.