Page:The life and letters of Sir John Henniker Heaton bt. (IA lifelettersofsi00port).pdf/146

 The moral of H. H.'s lecture was gracefully pointed by the arrival of Mr Winston Churchill, the brilliant son of a brilliant American mother, and a great English statesman. Strawberries and cream were handed round, and after tea there were beautiful roses for the ladies as the party broke up amid laughter and pleasant chatter.

H. H. very greatly enjoyed the informal gatherings which took place at Carlsbad, where he went yearly for the cure. One day the talk turned, as was not unnatural, on Postal Reform. H. H. told his listeners that he had always advocated a measure enabling the writer of a letter to get it back before it was delivered if he could prove to the postmaster that he was the writer.

H. H. instanced a case of a friend of his who had inadvertently posted a letter, from abroad, to his wife, which contained expressions of very warm regard and was really intended for a lady he had recently met. Realizing his mistake, he hurried to the postmaster to get the letter back but was met with refusal. In a great state of agitation he telegraphed to his wife: "Have posted a letter to you by mistake, earnestly hope you will return it to me unopened as it would cause us both great unhappiness." H. H. asked his friend what had happened. "My wife was a brick," he said, "and sent back the letter, but it cost me a diamond bracelet to put it right with her !"

"I wonder," asked H. H., "what these ladies present would have done?"

Elinor Glyn said she would write a book with two endings, showing what would happen if the letter was returned and if it was opened.

"I would send back the letter unopened, but it