"You needn't be the least bit nervous," said Jimmy. "Uncle Evie is a bit boring at times, but he wouldn't frighten a ten-year-old orphan. We'll send him a wire to say we're coming."
"Jimmy," said Beth, "you're priceless! That's another lisp. Absolutely a topper. 'I had the good fortune to be present a few evenings ago at an informal little al fresco dinner given by Sir Evelyn Dent in his fascinating thirteenth century moated grange——'"
"There's no moat," said Jimmy, "and it's a Manor House."
"What does that matter?" said Beth. "It's old, I suppose. People like your uncle always live in old houses."
"It's old, all right," said Jimmy.
"Then moated grange is the proper thing to call it when writing the Lispings of Lilith, but if you really prefer it I don't mind calling it an historic pile. 'Sir Evelyn, a dignified and gracious——' What's the masculine of 'châtelaine,' Jimmy?"
"'Château,' I should think," said Jimmy, "but don't call poor old Uncle Evie that. He'd hate it."
"'Sir Evelyn,'" said Beth, writing as she spoke, "'who between ourselves——' I mean to say 'entre nous is something of a grand seigneur.'"
"I know I'll be petrified with terror," said Mary. "A grand seigneur in a moated grange."
"'Among the guests,'" Beth went on, "'was the Earl of Colavon, who was wearing the famous diamond studs which have been in the family since Henry VIII gave them to Anne Boleyn, who was, as everybody knows, one of the ancestors of the Dents,'"