Every woman, even the least sophisticated,
knows what really beautiful and becoming clothes cost nowadays, and Mrs.
Crofton's clothes were eminently beautiful and becoming.
As Betty went back into the drawing-room, she heard the visitor say:--"I
was born with a kind of horror of dogs, and I'm afraid that in some
uncanny way they always know it! It's such bad luck, for most nice people
and all the people I myself have cared for in my life, have been dog
lovers."
And at that Dolly, who had a most unfortunate habit of blurting out just
those things which, even if people are thinking of, they mostly leave
unsaid, exclaimed:--"Your husband bred terriers, didn't he? Flick came
from him."
Mrs. Crofton made no answer to this, and Janet, who was looking at her,
saw her face alter. A curious expression of--was it pain?--it looked more
like fear,--came over it. It was clear that Dolly's thoughtless words had
hurt her.
Suddenly there came the sound of a tap on the pane of one of the windows,
and Mrs. Crofton, whose nerves were evidently very much out of order,
gave a suppressed cry.
"It's only Timmy," said Timmy's mother reassuringly, and then she went
and opened the window.
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