"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.
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