velations; let us be thankful for all that we do _not_
know."

"And I am sure we couldn't love Percy any more than we do, let her birth
or circumstances be what they would," said Mrs. Lunt.

"I don't believe in natural affection, myself," said the Colonel; "but
if I did, it would be enough to hear Percy congratulating herself on
being of 'our very own blood,--a real Lunt!' Poor child! why should we
trouble her? And I have often heard her say, she thought any blot on
one's lineage the greatest of misfortunes."

"The reason the Colonel wanted to tell you about Percy was this. Now
that her husband may be dead, who knew all about her, it is just
possible that circumstances may arise that would need the interference
of friends. If we were to die, the secret might die with us. We are sure
it will be safe with you, Aunt Marian, and we think that, as you know
about her husband, you had better know the whole."

Now this whole I propose to tell, myself, in one tenth part of the time
it took the Colonel to tell me, prefacing it with a few facts about
himself, which I guess he does not think that I know, and which relate
to his early beginnings. Of course, all Barton is fully acquainted with
the fact that he was born in the north of Vermont, at "the jumping-off
place." He came to Boston, mostly on foot, and began his career in a
small shop in Cornhill, where he sold bandannas, and the like. This
imports nothing,--only he came by and by to associate with lords and
dukes. And that shows what comes of being an American. He fell among
Perkinses and Sturgises, and after working hard for them in China, and
getting a great deal to do in the "carrying-trade," whatever that may
be, retired on his half-million to Maryland, where he lived awhile,
until he went to Europe. After he returned he bought the Schuyler place,
which had been for sale years and years. But in Barton we like new
things, and we saw no beauty in the old house, with its long walk of
nearly a quarter of a mile to the front door, bordered with box. The
Colonel, whose taste has been differently cultivated, has made a
beautiful place of it, applying some of the old French notions of
gardening, where the trees would admit of being cut into grotesque
shapes, and leaving the shade-trees, stately and handsome, as they
always were. Now to his story in my own words.

CHAPTER IV.

I can't think of a more desolate place than they had in Maryland, by
their own account;--a great