"A hangel," repeated the gardener, laying great stress on the aspirate. He proceeded to sing Rada's praises with evident enjoyment, and palpably from a sense of conviction. She was, it appeared, although as poor as a church mouse, the Lady Bountiful to all the cottage folk in the neighbourhood, by whom she was simply adored. She would minister comforts to the sick and needy, often little more than a cheerful word and the sunlight of her presence, but no less welcome for all that. She would take charge of unruly children and attend to the house-keeping in the unavoidable absence of the mother; she would cook little dainties with her own hands; she had an extraordinary capacity for lulling restless babies to sleep. Willis declared stoutly that she had pulled his own little daughter through a fever when the doctor had been despondent, and she was not afraid of infection either, he added proudly. Here, indeed, was Rada in a new light! What a queer and complex little creature she must be! She had treated him with such shocking rudeness: he had thought her the very contrary to the "hangel" described by Willis, but now it was evident that there were depths in the girl's nature which had not yet been revealed to him. Having praised Rada to the full, Willis proceeded to abuse her father, and that in no measured terms. He was a shiftless, idle ne'er-do-well, who had lost all pretensions to being considered a gentleman, though up in London, Willis had heard, he did play the "high and mighty." He went about to race meetings when he could, and had sometimes been away for days without leaving provision for his daughter. He kept one or two race-horses at Treves's stables, but had not brought off a win for some time past. When at home he lounged about in his shirt-sleeves, read the sporting papers, and drank himself silly. Rada, very naturally, found her own distractions, and her chief joy was to career about the country upon her black mare, Bess, a creature as wild as herself. "The captain don't take no stock of his girl," said Willis emphatically, "an' he'll be sorry for it one of these days. I see her about with young Jack Treves more'n enough, an' Jack ain't the right sort for her, not by a long way." This was a revelation at which Mostyn felt vaguely annoyed. He took an immediate dislike to Jack Treves. Yet why should he worry himself over Rada's flirtations? Later that morning, while he ate a comfortable breakfast served up by Mrs. Willis, he heard all the gardener's ideas recapitulated by the good woman. She was just as emphatic on the subject of the captain as her husband had been, nor did she swerve from her opinion when she learnt that Mostyn was already acquainted with the Armitages, though the knowledge of this fact reduced Willis to awkward silence and to much rubbing of his jaw.