In less than a month Beryl had won over all her step-children, except Francis, who held out till Easter, but was reduced to allegiance by the hampers she sent to him at Rugby--; in three months they had all moved to a much sweller house on the Chelsea Embankment.

Father--Beryl voted "Dad" a little lower-middle class--Father had somehow become connected with some great business establishment of which Mother was the head.
Together they were making pots of money.

Francis would go to Sandhurst, Elspeth to a finishing school in Paris (her ambition), and the others would spend the fine months of the year rollicking with Margery and Podge on the Sussex coast.
In 1907, also, they became aware that their new mother was not alone in the world.

A stately lady whose eyes seemed once to have done a deal of weeping (they were destined alas! to do much more, for three of her gallant, handsome sons were killed in the War, and _that_ finally killed the poor old Dean of Thetford), who wore a graceful Spanish mantilla of black lace when in draughty places, came to see them after they had moved to Garden Corner on the Chelsea Embankment.

She turned out to be the mother of Mrs.Beryl and was quite inclined to be their grandmother as well as Margery's and Podge's.