The unhappy quarrel consequent on your grandmother’s marriage having interrupted normal intercourse between her and the rest of the family, my sister Cara and I were never afforded an opportunity of making the acquaintance of our nephew Richard and his wife, or of our niece Barbara. Now that they are dead, there would not seem to be any reason why this regrettable quarrel should be carried on into a third generation. As the daughter of our nephew Richard you are our only surviving relative. Your grandmother, Candida Benevent, was our sister. Her marriage to John Sayle removed her from the family circle. We invite you to return to it. My sister Cara and I will be glad if you will pay us a visit. The Benevents come of an old and noble family, and we feel that their last descendant should know something of its history and traditions.

Hoping that you will see your way to accepting an invitation which, I can assure you, is very cordially extended, I sign myself for the first but, I hope, not for the last time,

Your great-aunt,

Olivia Benevent’

Candida looked at the letter with some rather mixed feelings. She knew that her grandmother’s name had been Candida Benevent, and she knew that there had been a family quarrel, but that was about as far as it went. What the quarrel was about, why it had never been made up, and whether there were any Benevent relations, she really had had no idea. Perhaps Barbara didn’t know either. Perhaps she knew and didn’t bother her head about it. She was the sort of person who mightn’t. An old quarrel might just not have seemed worth bothering about. And Candida Benevent had died when her children were quite young – there had been no living link with the family she had left behind her.

When she showed the letter to Everard Mortimer, who was Barbara Sayle’s solicitor, she discovered that he knew no more about the quarrel than she did herself, but he strongly advised her to accept Miss Benevent’s invitation. He was a pleasant young man in his early thirties with a modern attitude towards the family quarrels of two generations ago.