The recipe had been given to her by her grandmother, and it produced a marvelous cake drenched in natural lemon extracts and nuts, one that not only kept for a year but actually became more and more flavorful as it cured. She wrapped these cakes in waxed paper and a slightly damp cotton dishcloth and stored them in the ice box of the house my Great, Great Grandfather Noah Wilfred Langston bought in Farmington, Connecticut, and served them at Saturday evening dinners with their finest linens and silver. In the late 1920s, her granddaughter, Marjorie Langston, presented the Devonshire cakes at Sunday tea, promptly at 4:30, at her Uncle Alfred's home in Southampton, Long Island.

Whenever Great Great Grandmother Sophia's guests asked her for her cake recipe, she would reply "Now, I'll have to think where I put it." As my mother said, Sophia knew the recipe by heart. But she did pass it on to my mother, who in turn gave it to me.