It's a real, proper
dinner-party, you know, Timmy."
Then he heard his godson's eager voice. "Oh, Betty, do come too! Mrs.
Jones can do the washing-up to-morrow morning. If you want to dress I'll
hook you up."
"I'm too tired to go up and dress," and Betty's voice did sound very
weary. There was a despondent note in it, too, which surprised the man
standing in the kitchen. Excepting during the few moments, to him
intensely moving and solemn moments, when they had spoken of George
within a day or two of his return to Beechfield, he had always seen Betty
extraordinarily cheerful.
"You can go just as you are," he heard Timmy say eagerly. "You could
pretend you'd just been to a fancy ball as a cook!" He added,
patronizingly, "If you put on a clean apron, you'll look quite nice."
Radmore did not catch the answer, but he gathered that it was again in
the negative, and a moment later Timmy's little feet scampered up the
uncarpeted flight of stairs which led into the upper part of the house.
Walking forward, he quietly pushed open the scullery door, and for some
seconds he stood unseen, taking in the far from unattractive scene before
him.
The scullery of Old Place was a glorified kind of scullery, for, just
before the War, Janet had spent a little of her own money on "doing it
up.
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