CHAPTER IX.
Mrs.Crofton was walking restlessly about her new home--the house that was so new to her, and yet, if local tradition could be trusted, one of the oldest inhabited dwellings in that part of England.
She had felt so sure that Godfrey Radmore would manage to get away from Old Place, and call on her this afternoon, for Jack Tosswill had told her that he was arriving before tea--she felt depressed and disappointed though she had not yet given up hope.
She wondered if he would come alone the first time, or if one of the girls would accompany him.

She felt just a little afraid of Rosamund--Rosamund was so very pretty with all the added, evanescent charm of extreme youth.

She told herself that it was lucky that she, Enid, and Godfrey Radmore were already friends, and good friends too.
Twice she went up into her bedroom and gave a long, searching, anxious look at herself in the narrow panel mirror which she had fixed on to one of the cupboard doors.

That there is no truer critic of herself, and of her appearance, than a very pretty woman, is generally true even of the vainest and most self-confident of her sex.
Enid Crofton had put on a white serge skirt, and a white woolen jumper, the only concession to her new widowhood being that the white jumper was bordered in pale grey of a shade that matched her shoes and stockings.
Though her anxious surveys of herself had been reassuring, she felt nervous, and a trifle despondent.

She did not like the country--the stillness even of village life got on her nerves.