The grape jug was two hundred years
old and had been in the Lloyd family ever since it was a jug at all.
It was a big, pot-bellied affair, festooned with pink-gilt grapes,
and with a verse of poetry printed on one side, and it had been given
as a wedding present to the Old Lady's great-grandmother. As long as
the Old Lady could remember it had sat on the top shelf in the cupboard
in the sitting-room wall, far too precious ever to be used.
Two years before, a woman who collected old china had
explored Spencervale, and, getting word of the grape jug,
had boldly invaded the old Lloyd place and offered to buy it.
She never, to her dying day, forgot the reception the Old Lady
gave her; but, being wise in her day and generation,
she left her card, saying that if Miss Lloyd ever changed
her mind about selling the jug, she would find that she,
the aforesaid collector, had not changed hers about buying it.
People who make a hobby of heirloom china must meekly overlook snubs,
and this particular person had never seen anything she coveted
so much as that grape jug.
The Old Lady had torn the card to pieces; but she remembered the name
and address. She went to the cupboard and took down the beloved jug.
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