After his mother had left the room, Timmy crept up close to the sofa, and so suddenly appeared, standing with his hands behind his back, before the visitor. She felt just a little startled; she had not known the strange-looking boy was still there. Then she told herself quickly that this surely must be Godfrey Radmore's godson--the child to whom he had sent one of her late husband's puppies. There came over pretty Mrs. Crofton a slight feeling of apprehension and discomfiture--she could not have told why. "When did you last see my godfather?" he asked abruptly, in an unchildish voice, and with a quaintly grown-up manner. "Your godfather?" she repeated hesitatingly, and yet she knew quite well who he meant. "I mean Major Radmore," he explained. She wondered why the disagreeable little fellow had asked such an indiscreet question. Then, reluctantly, she made up her mind she had better answer it truly: "I saw him the day before yesterday." She forced herself to go on lightly. "I suppose you're the young gentleman to whom he sent a puppy last year?" He nodded, and then asked another disconcerting question: "Did you leave your dog outside? Dolly thought you didn't like dogs, so my terrier, Flick, has been shut up in the stable. I suppose you only like your own dog--I'm rather like that, too." "I haven't got a dog," she answered nervously. "It's quite true that I don't like dogs--or, rather, I should like them if they liked me, but they don't." "Then the dog that was with you belonged to the old gentleman?" "Old gentleman?" repeated Mrs. Crofton vaguely. This time she didn't in the least know what the child was talking about, and she was relieved when the door opened, and the Tosswill family came streaming through it, accompanied by their step-mother. Laughing introductions took place. Mrs. Crofton singled out instinctively her gentle, cultivated-looking host. She told herself with a queer sense of relief, that he was the sort of man who generally shows a distantly chivalrous regard for women. Next to her host, his eldest son, Jack Tosswill, came in for secret, close scrutiny, but Enid Crofton always found it easy and more than easy, to "make friends" with a young man. She realised that she was up against a more difficult problem in the ladies of the family. She felt a little frightened of Mrs. Tosswill, of whom Godfrey Radmore had spoken with such affection and gratitude. Janet looked what Mrs. Crofton called "clever," and somehow she never got on with clever women. Betty and Dolly she dismissed as of no account. Rosamund was the one the attractive stranger liked best. There is no greater mistake than to think that a pretty woman does not like to meet another pretty woman. On the contrary, "like flies to like" in this, as in almost everything else. But how did they regard her? She would have been surprised indeed had she been able to see into their hearts.