They had restrained her almost forcibly from rushing forth to fling herself upon his dead body, and now that it was all over, now that the man who had loved her and whom she had never loved was in his grave, she lay prostrate, refusing all comfort.
Tessa, wide-eyed and speculative, was in the care of Mrs.Burton, alternately quarrelling vigorously with little Cedric Burton whose intellectual leanings provoked her most ardent contempt, and teasing the luckless Scooter out of sheer boredom till all the animal's ideas in life centred in a desperate desire to escape.
It was Tessa to whom Stella's pitying attention was first drawn on the day after her return to The Green Bungalow.

Tommy, finding her raging in the road like a little tiger-cat over some small _contretemps_ with Mrs.
Burton, had lifted her on to his shoulders and brought her back with him.
"Be good to the poor imp!" he muttered to his sister.

"Nobody wants her." Certainly Mrs, Burton did not.

She passed her on to Stella with her two-edged smile, and Tessa and Scooter forthwith cheerfully took up their abode at The Green Bungalow with whole-hearted satisfaction.
Stella experienced little difficulty in dealing with the child.

She found herself the object of the most passionate admiration which went far towards simplifying the problem of managing her.