She felt convinced that the pretty young widow had made her kind sister-in-law believe that she was far poorer, and more to be pitied, than she really was.
Life in an English village is in some ways like a quiet pool--and, just as the throwing of a pebble into such a pool causes what appears to create an extraordinary amount of commotion on the surface of the water, so the advent of any human being who happens to be a little out of the common produces an amount of discussion, public and private, which might well seem to those outside the circle of gossip, extravagant, as well as unnecessary.
The general verdict on Mrs.Crofton had begun by being favourable.

Both with gentle and simple her appealing beauty told in her favour, and very soon the village people smiled, and looked knowingly at one another, as they noted the perpetual coming and going of Jack Tosswill to The Trellis House.

No day went by without the young man making some more or less plausible excuse to call there once, twice, and sometimes thrice.
It was noticed, too, by those interested in such matters--and in Beechfield they were in the majority--that Mr.Godfrey Radmore, whose return to Old Place had naturally caused a good deal of talk and speculation--was also a frequent visitor at The Trellis House.

Now and again he would call there in his car, and take Mrs.Crofton for a long drive; but they never went out alone--either Dolly or Rosamund, and invariably Timmy, would be of the party.
As the days went on, each member of the Tosswill family began to have a definite and, so to speak, crystallised view of Enid Crofton.

Rosamund had become her champion, thus earning for the first time in her life the warm approval of her brother Jack; but Dolly and Tom grew rather jealous of their sister's absorption in the stranger.