“Many, many, many, happy returns,” said the Old Soldier. “Not only for your own sake, but for Annie’s, and John Maldon’s, and many other people’s. It seems but yesterday to me, John, when you were a little creature, a head shorter than Master Copperfield, making baby love to Annie behind the gooseberry bushes in the back-garden.”

“My dear mama,” said Mrs. Strong, “never mind that now.”

“Annie, don’t be absurd,” returned her mother. “If you are to blush to hear of such things now you are an old married woman, when are you not to blush to hear of them?”

“Old?” exclaimed Mr. Jack Maldon. “Annie? Come!”