Maria had a head for domestic affairs only; she did not pretend to be wise in international matters. She sighed gently and thought of a certain chintz-clad room up at Dibley. "Get on with it!" Her lord pointed at her glass peremptorily. "Pol Roger '04'll hurt nobody." Strong in that faith, he lifted his own glass and bowed and beamed over the top of it. "Grandma, here's now!" At the toast Maria hoisted a blush which brought Josiah to the verge of catastrophe. Tears, her one form of emotional luxury, came into her honest eyes. "In a year or two, Grandma, we'll have to be thinking of your golden wedding--touching wood!" He laid a ritualistic finger upon the mahogany. "You little thought, did you now, when we started out together in that funny little box up Parker's Entry that one day you'd be My Lady? Funny world--what? I remember going to fetch the Doctor the night that gel was born. Bitter cold it was." Suddenly Josiah stopped and again took up his glass. "Wind had an edge like a knife round the corner by Waterloo Square." Then came an odd change of voice. "Did I understand you to say the gel would like me to be godfather?" Maria understood that Melia understood that Bill would like it. A sigh escaped Josiah. He laid down his knife and fork. "Well, well, I never made such a mistake in my life as over that chap." His voice grew humbler than Maria had ever heard it. "Shows how you can be deceived. Something big about that feller. Never made a greater mistake in my life. We'll hope he'll come through. Better write him a line, Mother. Don't suppose it's any use tryin' to send a wire." LII Some weeks later, on a cold Sunday morning in November, Sir Josiah and Lady Munt drove over to Torrington Cottage. They were accompanied by Sally, on short leave from France, and by Gertrude Preston. Before the party walked across the village green to the little parish church, where a service of National Thanksgiving was to be held, it found that a matter of great importance claimed attention. The matter was Jim. The rector of the parish had arranged to christen him that afternoon at three o'clock. Near a good log fire in the sunny embrasure of the charming little drawing-room his grand cradle had been set; and here the wonderful infant was duly inspected by his godparents. Jim was a picture. His grandfather said he was. There was no other word. Yet even in the presence of this phenomenal youth there was but a chastened joy. He was sleeping for one thing, calmly, sweetly and superbly; and his pale, fine-drawn, yet strangely proud-looking mother was clad in the livery of widowhood. Said Josiah in a low voice, so as not to wake the baby, "What's happened to the picture that used to be there?" He pointed to the wall above the chimneypiece. "It fell down, Dad." The voice of Melia was calm. "When?" "One night last week--the night before the news came." "You don't say!" Josiah was not superstitious, still it was queer.