"That seems rather a funny thing to do, when you might have been here helping your Mummy," but she said the words very kindly. Then suddenly the mention of The Trellis House reminded her of Godfrey Radmore. "I've got a great piece of news!" she exclaimed. "Guess who's coming here to spend the week-end with us, Timmy?" He looked at her gravely and said:--"I think I know, Mum." She felt taken aback, as she so often was with her strange little son. "I don't think you do," she cried briskly. "I think it's"--he hesitated a moment--"Major Radmore, my godfather." She was very, very surprised. Then her quick Scotch mind fastened on the one unfamiliar word. "Why _Major_ Radmore?" she asked. Timmy looked a little confused. "I--I don't know," he muttered unwillingly. "I thought he was a soldier, Mum." "Of course he _was_ a soldier. But he isn't a soldier now." "Isn't it tea-time?" asked Timmy suddenly. "Yes, I suppose it is." As they walked towards the house together Janet was telling herself uneasily that unless Timmy had met Dr. O'Farrell, it was impossible for him to have learnt through any ordinary human agency that Godfrey Radmore was coming to Beechfield. Though a devoted, she was not a blind mother, and she was disagreeably aware that her little son never "gave himself away." She did not wish to start him on a long romancing explanation which would embody--if one were to put it in bald English--a lie. So she said nothing. They were close to the door of the house when he again took her aback by suddenly saying:--"I don't think Mrs. Crofton can be a very nice sort of lady, Mum." (Then he had seen Mrs. Crofton, and _she_ had told him.) "Why not, Timmy?" "I have a sort of feeling that she's horrid." "Nonsense! If only for your godfather's sake, we must all try and like her. Besides, my boy, she's in great trouble. Her husband only died two or three months ago." "Some people aren't sorry when their husbands die," remarked Timmy. She pretended not to hear. But as they walked through into the hall she heard him say as if to himself: "Some people are glad. Mrs. George Pott"--the woman who kept the local beer-shop--"danced when _her_ husband died." "I wish, Timmy," said his mother sharply, "that you would not listen to, or repeat low village gossip." "Not even if it's true, Mum?" "No, not even if it's true." When Janet had first come to Old Place as a bride, eager to shoulder what some of her friends had told her would be an almost intolerable burden, her husband's six children had been a sad, subdued, nursery-brought-up group, infinitely pathetic to her warm Scotch heart. At once she had instituted, rather to the indignation of the old nurse who was yet to become in due time her devoted henchwoman, a daily dining-room tea, and the custom still persisted.