Entered here Mrs. Cloke, and hung worshipping over the cot. They
showed her the mug and her face shone. "Oh, now Lady Conant's
sent it, it'll be all proper, ma'am, won't it? 'George' of course
he'd have to be, but seein' what he is we was hopin'--all your
people was hopin'--it 'ud be 'Lashmar' too, and that'ud just
round it out. A very 'andsome mug quite unique, I should imagine.
'Wayte awhyle--wayte awhyle.' That's true with the Lashmars, I've
heard. Very slow to fill their houses, they are. Most like Master
George won't open 'is nursery till he's thirty."

"Poor lamb!" cried Sophie. "But how did you know my folk were
Lashmars?"

Mrs. Cloke thought deeply. "I'm sure I can't quite say, ma'am,
but I've a belief likely that it was something you may have let
drop to young Iggulden when you was at Rocketts. That may have
been what give us an inkling. An' so it came out, one thing in
the way o' talk leading to another, and those American people at
Veering Holler was very obligin' with news, I'm told, ma'am."

"Great Scott!" said George, under his breath. "And this is the
simple peasant!"

"Yiss," Mrs. Cloke went on. "An' Cloke was only wonderin' this
afternoon--your pillow's slipped my dear, you mustn't lie that
a-way--just for the sake o' sayin' something, whether you
wouldn't think well now of getting the Lashmar farms back, sir.
They don't rightly round off Sir Walter's estate. They come
caterin' across us more. Cloke, 'e 'ud be glad to show you over
any day."