of the Spanish Armada, and
perhaps Bannockburn (which then made me wish I had known all this
before I went to Stirling, but which battle, now as I write, I know
must have been fought a long time before any of the Dorks went to
Scotland), and I expect my eyes flashed with family pride, for do what
I would I couldn't sit calm and listen to what I was hearing. But,
after all, that two hundred years did weigh upon my mind. "If you make
a family tree for me," said I, "you will have to cut off the trunk and
begin again somewhere up in the air."

"Oh, no," said he, "we don't do that. We arrange the branches so that
they overlap each other, and the dotted lines which indicate the
missing portions are not noticed. Then, after further investigation and
more information, the dots can be run together and the tree made
complete and perfect."

Of course, I had nothing more to say, and he promised to send me the
tree the next morning, though, of course, requesting me to pay him in
advance, which was the rule of the office, and you would be amazed,
madam, if you knew how much that tree cost. I got it the next morning,
but I haven't shown it to Jone yet. I am proud that I own it, and I
have thrills through me whenever my mind goes back to its Norman roots;
but I am bound to say that family trees sometimes throw a good deal of
shade over their owners, especially when they have gaps in them, which
seems contrary to nature, but is true to fact.

_Letter Number Twenty-six_

SOUTHWESTERN HOTEL, SOUTHAMPTON

To-morrow our steamer sails, and this is the last letter I write on
English soil; and although I haven't done half that I wanted to, there
are ever so many things I have done that I can't write you about.

I had seen so few cathedrals that on the way down here I was bound to
see at least one good one, and so we stopped at Winchester. It was
while walking under the arches of that venerable pile that the thought
suddenly came to me that we were now in Hampshire, and that, perhaps,
in this cathedral might be some of the tombs of my ancestors. Without
saying what I was after I began at one of the doors, and I went clean
around that enormous church, and read every tablet in the walls and on
the floor.

Once I had a shock. There was a good many small tombs with roofs over
them, and statues of people buried within, lying on top of the tombs,
and some of them had their faces and clothes colored so as to make them
look almost as