There lies a wee baby, fast asleep, with its tiny hand outside the coverlet, and its lace cap on the little pillow.  ‘Netta,’ is the name of that small fragment of humanity.  Owen and Gladys’ first-born.

Having surveyed the company, we will listen to their conversation.

‘Well, father, don’t you feel vain-glorious to-day?’ says Owen, stopping suddenly on his way to the cradle, and pulling his father’s grey whisker.

‘I feel very thankful that it is all over, and very unnatural.’

‘Not unnatural, David, bach,’ says his wife.

’Yes, unnatural.  It was never intended for Miss Gwynne to be my daughter-in-law, and I breakfasting at the Park.  I felt like a hog in armour, fidgeting inside and out.’

‘Perhaps it was never intended for me to be your daughter, either,’ says Gladys, looking archly at the farmer.

’Treue for you, my dear.  That was a piece of luck that came without my seeking, and I like it all the better for that reason, I suppose.’

‘I am sure you may rejoice in the present Mrs Rowland Prothero,’ says Mrs Jonathan; ’and you certainly need not imagine, for one moment, that she is degrading herself by marrying your son.  In London he is in the first society, and meets people constantly, on equal terms, who would quite throw your Lady Marys into the shade.  Does he not, Mr Jones?’

‘I cannot quite enter into these points, ma’am,’ says Mr Jones; ’but he and his bride are as well suited to one another as any young people I ever saw, and will be a blessing to their parish and their friends.’

‘Besides, if you come to family, brother David,’ says Mr Jonathan, ’ours is of considerable antiquity, and I cannot think how it got Anglicised into Prothero.  You know I have been enabled to trace it back to Rhyddrch, or Rhodri, a prince who fought with and frequently defeated Ethelbald.  You may not be aware, Mrs Jones, that our name, properly Prydderch, means Ap Rhyddrch, and that we owe it to this illustrious source.’

‘Now, aunt,’ exclaims Owen, ’never mention the Payne Perrys again.  Why, you cannot light a candle to us.  I am sure your Herefordshire Perry can’t date back to the conquest, and here are we long before it.  What date, uncle?’

’720, Owen.  And I wish you, as the eldest son, would begin to write your name in the proper way.  I contemn, absolutely, this altering our fine old language into that jargon of Anglo-Saxon, Danish, Norman, and French, now yclept English.

’Very well, uncle, let us spell it R, H, Y, D, D, R, C, H,—­eight consonants without the aid of one single vowel.  I declare the very name is courage itself,—­no auxiliary forces.  Gladys, I beg you will always sign yourself so when you write to Mrs Jones; and be sure you spell your own name as it ought to be spelt,—­G, W, L, A, D, Y, S. Even this shows the weakness of the female sex; you do require one little vowel to help along the consonants,’