January 2nd, 188--

MY DEAR MR. JERROLDS:

You will be surprised, doubtless, to hear from an old woman
who is _perfectly unknown_ to you in all probability, but if
your mother is still living she will remember Agatha Upgrove
and the cups of tea and dishes of innocent scandal she
shared with her, when you were rolling in a perambulator. I
write to you instead of to her in order to find out if she
is living, in fact, and to renew at sixty-two the friendship
of _twenty-six_! You may well wonder at such a sudden
impulse after thirty years, almost, of silence, and if you
will pardon a garrulous old woman's epistolary ramblings, I
will tell you, for you are at the bottom of it.

My grandniece was summoned hastily to Paris a month ago, to
act as bridesmaid to a young school friend, and as no one
else could well be spared at that time to go with the child,
I offered myself. I am an experienced traveller and even at
_my_ age think far less of a trip across the Channel than
most of my relatives do of one to India, with which, by the
way, I am also familiar. It was when my husband's (and your
father's) regiment was ordered to India that your mother and
I met. You came very near being born there, did you know it?
But the regiment was recalled, and we came back _delighted_,
for neither of us liked it. Major Upgrove died of dysentery
a year later, and my widowhood and your father's absence in
Africa at that time drew your mother and me very close
together. One wonders that _such_ intimacies should ever
fade, but I have seen it _too often_ to regard it as
anything but natural, alas! It was my son, Captain Arthur
Upgrove of the ----th Hussars, who taught you to walk--I can
see you now, with the lappets of your worked muslin cap
flying in the wind, and _such_ a serious expression!

But to return to my trip to Paris. I established my niece
comfortably with her friends, and then betook myself to my
own devices till such time as she should need me again. I
had not been in Paris for eight years (one settles down so
_amazingly_ in provincial England!) and I derived great
pleasure from the old scenes of my honeymoon, that sad
pleasure which is all that is left to women of my age, who
have not their grandchildren to renew their youth in!