Timmy went on into the dining-room to find his brothers and sisters all gathered there excepting Dolly. But as he sat down, and as Betty began to pour out tea, Dolly came in from the garden with the words:--"Guess who I've met and had a talk with?" She looked round her eagerly, but no one ventured an opinion. There were so many, many people whom Dolly might have met and had a talk with, for she was the most gregarious member of the Tosswill family. At last Timmy spoke up:--"I expect you've seen Mrs. Crofton," he observed, his mouth already full of bread and butter. Dolly was taken aback. "How did you know?" she cried. "But it's quite true--I _have_ seen Mrs. Crofton!" "What is she like?" asked Jack indifferently. "How old is she?" This from Betty, who somehow always seemed to ask the essential question. "D'you think she'll prove a 'stayer'?" questioned Tom. He had hoped that someone with a family of boys and girls would have come to The Trellis House. It was a beautiful little building--the oldest dwelling-house in the village, in spite of its early Victorian name. But no one ever stayed there very long. Some of the older village folk said it was haunted. "Did you speak to her, or did she speak to you?" asked Rosamund. And then again Timmy intervened. "I know more about her than any one of you do. But I don't mean to tell you what I know," he announced. No one took any notice of him. By common consent efforts were always made in the family circle to keep Timmy down--but such efforts were rarely successful. "Well, tell us what's she like?" exclaimed Rosamund. "I did so hope we should escape another widow." She had hoped for a nice, well-to-do couple, with at least one grown-up son preferably connected, in some way, with the stage. Dolly Tosswill, still standing, looked down at her audience. "She's quite unlike what I thought she would be," she began. "For one thing, she's quite young, and she's awfully pretty and unusual-looking. You'd notice her anywhere." "Did you meet her in the post-office?" asked Betty. "No, at church. She only arrived this morning, and she said she felt so lonely and miserable that when she heard the bell ring she thought she'd go along and see what our church was like." "Oh, then she's 'pi'?" in a tone of disgust from Rosamund. "I'd noticed her in church, though she was sitting rather back, close to the door," went on Dolly, "and I'd wondered who she was, as she looked so very unlike any of the Beechfield people." "How do you mean--unlike?" asked Tom. "I can't explain exactly. I thought she was a summer visitor. And then something so funny happened--" Dolly was sitting down now, and Betty handed her a cup of tea, grieving the while to see how untidy she looked with her hat tilted back at an unbecoming angle. "What happened?"