e floor. They were Hephzy's bugbear, for I refused to
permit their being "straightened out" or arranged.

I looked about for a book and selected several, but, although they were
old favorites, I could not interest myself in any of them. I tried and
tried, but even Mr. Pepys, that dependable solace of a lonely hour,
failed to interest me with his chatter. Perhaps Campbell's pointed
remarks concerning lords and ladies had its effect here. Old Samuel
loved to write of such people, having a wide acquaintance with them, and
perhaps that very acquaintance made me jealous. At any rate I threw the
volume back upon its pile and began to think of myself, and of my work,
the very thing I had expressly determined not to do when I came into the
room.

Jim's foolish and impossible advice to write of places and people I knew
haunted and irritated me. I did know Bayport--yes, and it might be true
that the group at the post-office contained possible material for many
books; but, if so, it was material for the other man, not for me. "Write
of what you know," said Jim. And I knew so little. There was at least
one good yarn in the dining-room at that moment, he had declared. He
must have meant Hephzibah, but, if he did, what was there in Hephzibah's
dull, gray life-story to interest an outside reader? Her story and mine
were interwoven and neither contained anything worth writing about. His
fancy had been caught, probably, by her odd combination of the romantic
and the practical, and in her dream of "Little Frank" he had scented a
mystery. There was no mystery there, nothing but the most commonplace
record of misplaced trust and ingratitude. Similar things happen in so
many families.

However, I began to think of Hephzy and, as I said, of myself, and to
review my life since Ardelia Cahoon and Strickland Morley changed its
course so completely. And now it seems to me that, in the course of
my "edging around" for the beginning of this present chronicle--so
different from anything I have ever written before or ever expected to
write--the time has come when the reader--provided, of course, the
said chronicle is ever finished or ever reaches a reader--should know
something of that life; should know a little of the family history of
the Knowles and the Cahoons and the Morleys.

CHAPTER III

Which, Although It Is Largely Family History, Should Not Be Skipped by
the Reader

Let us take the Knowleses first. My name is Hosea Kent Knowle