“I have nothing at all against him.” She paused, and then went on: “You have evidently formed an idea, doctor, that papa and I have taken a dislike to Palmer. Papa _does_ dislike him, I admit; but for myself, all I can say is, that he is not a companion I should naturally choose for the other boys. I may be wrong:――if I am, you will at least give me credit for not having interfered up to the present. What it really amounts to, I suppose, is that somehow I don’t feel perfectly sure that he is a _good_ boy. Don’t look so disgusted! After all, you asked me what I thought. I don’t know Palmer; none of us do:――I don’t know a thing more about him at this moment than I did on the day he arrived here; and I can’t look upon that as an encouraging sign.” She smiled a sort of challenge, which the doctor failed to take up. “I know what _you_ like about him,” she went on, “and of course all the children like him too:――Ann simply says her prayers to him. But do you think he likes _them_? He likes Ann, I dare say, and, though you mightn’t expect me to admit this, I also think he likes Grif a little, in his own way. But do you really believe he cares for Edward, who is his particular friend?... Not one little bit. Nor for any of the rest of us. Oh, I know: I am quite sure. He could watch us all drown without raising a hand to throw us a rope that might be lying at his feet.” “I’m sorry you find him so vindictive,” said the doctor, taking up his hat. “I don’t. He doesn’t strike me as being in the least vindictive. I simply think he is callous. All you imagine to have been done for Grif was really done for sport. I’m quite willing to grant that he is very clever and brave:――but I doubt if he has any conscience, or any moral sense.” The doctor was silent. He knew that to argue would be only waste of breath. But his own opinion of Miss Annesley dropped there and then to zero. Her whole attitude, where Palmer was concerned, seemed to him, like her father’s, stupid, ungrateful, unfair. To the doctor’s mind, Edward was just an average boy, perfectly commonplace; Jim was simply mischievous, though a nice little chap, and quite bright and intelligent; while Grif was intelligent too, and rather babyish for his age. To compare any of them with Palmer was ridiculous. From a Sunday-school, or an ‘aunt’ point of view, they might be better or they might not; but, considered as the stuff of which a man is made, they simply, in comparison, did not count. So he put it to himself, disgustedly, while he drove down the avenue, and along the road, in the direction of the now ruined church. As he passed by the graveyard he caught sight of Grif and stopped the car. “Like to come for a drive?” he suggested. “I’ll be able to bring you back in time for lunch.”