She was only a child as yet, wise beyond her years, but too thoroughly immature to cause any anxiety for some years to come.

Meantime she had at first tolerated and then gently encouraged the eager and obvious anxiety of Rupert Stillwell to make a footing for himself in the Rectory family.
At the outbreak of the war her antipathy to young Stillwell as a slacker had been violent.

He had not joined up with the first band of ardent young souls who had so eagerly pointed the path to duty and to glory.
But, when it had been made clear to the public mind that young Stillwell had been pronounced physically unfit for service and was therefore prevented from taking his place in that Canadian line which though it might wear thin at times had never broken, Mrs.Templeton relieved him in her mind of the damning count of being a slacker.

Later, becoming impressed with the enthusiasm of the young man's devotion to various forms of patriotic war service at home, she finally, though it must be confessed with something of an effort, had granted him a place within the circle of her home.

Furthermore, Rupert Stillwell had done extremely well in all his business enterprises and had come to be recognised as one of the coming young men of the district, indeed of the Province, with sure prospects of advancement in public estimation.