"Neither, I'm most pleased to say," she announces with a grin - it is very rewarding to surprise a person -, springing to her feet with a click of floral embossed boot heels on the yard's dusty paving stones.

The lumpy packet is held out to him with both hands; it sags slightly in its strings.

"I'll shortly be very occupied with work, and thought it would be best to give you your present early."