The warmest of welcomes to your little man. I hope he will appreciate his native land now he has come to it. Though you have said nothing we cannot, of course, look on him as a little stranger, and so I am sending him the old Lashmar christening mug. It has been with us since Gregory Lashmar, your great-grandmother's brother—
George stared at his wife.
“Go on,” she twinkled, from the pillows.
—mother's brother, sold his place to Walter's family. We seem to have acquired some of your household gods at that time, but nothing survives except the mug and the old cradle, which I found in the potting-shed and am having put in order for you. I hope little George—Lashmar, he will be too, won't he?—will live to see his grandchildren cut their teeth on his mug.
Affectionately yours,
ALICE CONANT.
P.S.—How quiet you've kept about it all!
“Well, I'm—”
“Don't swear,” said Sophie. “Bad for the infant mind.”
“But how in the world did she get at it? Have you ever said a word about the Lashmars?”
“You know the only time—to young Iggulden at Rocketts—when Iggulden died.”