She wrote to John and asked if there was a house to let in Beechfield, quoting Godfrey as having told her it was a delightful village." "And how old may she be ?" "Her husband was a Colonel Crofton, so I suppose she's middle-aged.

She's only been a widow three months--if as long." Janet Tosswill waited till Dr.O'Farrell was well away, and then she began walking down the broad corridor which divided Old Place.

It was such a delightful, dignified, spacious house, and very dear to them all, yet Janet was always debating within herself whether they ought to go on living in it, now that they had become so poor.
When she came to the last door on the left, close to the baize door Which shut off the commons from the living rooms, she waited a moment.
Then, turning the handle, she walked into what was still called the schoolroom, though Timmy never did his lessons there.
Betty Tosswill, the eldest of John Tosswill's three daughters, was sitting at a big mid-Victorian writing-table, examining the house-books.
She had just discovered two "mistakes" in the milkman's account, and she felt perhaps unreasonably sorry and annoyed.

Betty had a generous, unsuspicious outlook on human nature, and a meeting with petty dishonesty was always a surprise.

She looked up with a very friendly, welcoming smile as her step-mother came into the room.