If she can't come we shall have done the civil thing." And then, thinking aloud, she went on: "Somehow I don't expect her to stay long in Beechfield.

She's too much of a London bird." "I don't suppose she would have come at all if she had known what a beastly, inhospitable place Beechfield is," said Jack sharply.

Though he was in such a hurry to be off, he waited in order to add: "She's been here nearly a month, and you've never called on her yet--it's too bad!" Janet Tosswill flushed deeply.

Jack had not spoken to her in such a tone since he was fifteen.
"What nonsense! She must be indeed silly and affected," she exclaimed, "if she expected me to pay her a formal call, especially as we had her in to supper the very first day she was here! I might retort by saying that she might have sent or called to know how poor old Nanna was! Everyone in the village has done so--but then your friend, Jack, is not what my father used to call '18 carat'!" "I think it's we who are not '18 carat,'" he answered furiously.

"We have shown Mrs.Crofton the grossest discourtesy, and I happen to know that she feels it very much." Janet Tosswill looked at her elder stepson with a feeling of blank amazement.