g, sir, I won't detain you: since, as I say, mine is family
business. Mr. Matthew Wesley, I presume?"--with a quick turn towards
his host as Captain Bewes slipped away--"And brother of this lady's
husband? Quite so. No, I thank you, I do not smoke; but will take
snuff, if the company allows. I have heard reports of your skill,
sir. My name is Wesley also: Garrett Wesley, of Dangan, County
Meath, in Ireland: I sit for my county in Parliament and pass in this
world for a respectable person. You'll excuse these details, ma'am;
but when a man breaks in upon a family party at this hour of the
night, he ought to give some account of himself."

Mrs. Wesley rose from her chair and dropped him a stately curtsey.
"The name suffices for us, sir. I make my compliments to one of my
husband's family."

"I'm obliged to you, ma'am, and pleased to hear the kinship
acknowledged. A good family, as families go, though I say it.
We have held on to Dangan since Harry Fifth's time; and to our name
since Guy of Welswe was made a thane by Athelstan. We have a knack,
ma'am, of staying the course: small in the build but sound in the
wind. It did me good, to-day, to see that son of yours step out for
the last round."

"Excuse me--" put in Samuel, pushing a candle aside and craning
forward (he was short-sighted) for a better look at the visitor.

"Ha? You have not heard? Well, well--oughtn't to tell tales out of
school, and certainly not to the Usher: but your mother and I, sir,
had the fortune, this morning, to witness a bout of fisticuffs--Whig
against Tory--and perhaps it will not altogether distress you to
learn that the Whig took a whipping. I like that boy of yours,
ma'am: he has breed. I do not forget"--with another bow--"his
mother's descent from the Annesleys of Anglesea and Valentia: but she
will forgive me that, while watching him, I thought rather of his
blood derived from my own great-great-grandfather Robert, and of our
common ancestors--Walter, the king's standard-bearer, Edward, who
carried the heart of the Bruce to Palestine--but I weary Mr. Matthew
perhaps?"

"Not at all, sir," the apothecary protested: rubbing a lump of sugar
on the rind of a lemon. "You will suffer me to mix you a glass of
punch while I listen? I am a practical man, who has been forced to
make his own way in the world, and has made it, I thank God. I never
found these ancestors of any use to me; but if one of them had time
and leisure to