'Yes, dear,' Sophia said with the meekness of the unconvinced. 'And of
course it's wrong to think of it now that he's married to another.'

Caroline guffawed her loudest, and the astonished horse quickened his
pace. The driver cast a look over his shoulder to see that all was
well, for he had a sister who made strange noises in her fits; and
Sophia, sitting in her drooping fashion, as though her head with its
great knob of fair hair, in which the silver was just beginning to
show, were too heavy for her body, had to listen to the old gibes
which had never made and never would make any impression on her,
though she would have felt forlorn without them. She was the only
puritanical Mallett in history, Caroline said. Oh, yes, the General
had been great at family prayers, but he was trying to make up for
lost time. It was difficult to believe that Sophia and Reginald were
the same flesh and blood.

Sophia interrupted. She was fond of Reginald, but she had no desire to
be like him, and Caroline knew he was a disgrace. They argued for some
time, and Rose closed her eyes until the talk, never really
acrimonious, drifted into reminiscences of their childhood and
Reginald's.

It was strange that they should have chosen that day to speak so much
of him, for when they reached home they found a letter addressed in an
unfamiliar hand.

'What's this?' Caroline said.

It was a thin, cheap envelope bearing a London postmark, and Caroline
drew out a flimsy sheet of paper.