Mama remembered today was your birthday and insisted I send you this.* I still haven't forgiven you for that prank you pulled with [your] Maisie. [My] Maisie also included this drawing of your kids. So. Happy birthday, I guess.

Thank you ever so much, Mrs. Yaxley, for your thoughtfulness and generosity and the exceptional dumplings.


Thank you ever so much, Maisie, for the lifelike impression of my Maisie and her brother. They love it as much as I do.


Thank you! I could hear the begrudging tone in your well-wishes. And really, I ought to ask when it’ll be your birthday again, because Stupid-Head – how old are you? Your maturity astounds me.

---

My daughter passed on your praises, thank you ever so much! Do let me know if you are ever in need of anything else, or if I can send Rowan over to help fix anything for you. She speaks quite fondly of you and your family, so I'm sure it would be no trouble at all.

Don't you know how rude it is to ask a woman her age?

I'm seven and twenty. You already missed my birthday, it's in January. The twenty-fifth to be precise.

Well, if it is rude to ask, it must be ruder to celebrate the passage of time when you are as ancient as all that! I’m pretty sure 27 to a woman is what 50 is a man’s years. Possibly 60. So my failure of acknowledgement was just my gift to you, to let you keep pretending you’re just as young and delinquent as all the children you meet having their first bouts of magic.

Anyway, you would forgive me for my rudeness – your mother has been telling me all sorts about how fond you are of me. Just so you know.

---