tches her head), I see what you are--"

"I was going to say, if you please, Madam, that my mission may serve as
a passport--"

"I'm of a good family, you must know, young man. You could have learned
that of anybody before seeking this sort of an introduction. Any of our
first families could have told you about me. You must go your way, young
man!" And she twitches her head, and pulls closer about her lean
shoulders the old red shawl.

"I (if you will permit me, Madam) am not ignorant of the very high
standing of your famous family--" Madam interposes by saying, every
muscle of her frigid face unmoved the while, she is glad he knows
something, "having read of them in a celebrated work by one of our more
celebrated genealogists--"

"But you should have brought a letter from the Bishop! and upon that
based your claims to a favorable reception. Then you have read of Sir
Sunderland Swiggs, my ancestor? Ah! he was such a Baron, and owned such
estates in the days of Elizabeth. But you should have brought a letter,
young man." Mrs. Swiggs replies rapidly, alternately raising and
lowering her squeaking voice, twitching her head, and grasping tighter
her Milton.

"Those are his arms and crest." She points with her Milton to a singular
hieroglyphic, in a wiry black frame, resting on the marble-painted
mantelpiece. "He was very distinguished in his time; and such an
excellent Christian." She shakes her head and wipes the tears from her
spectacles, as her face, which had before seemed carved in wormwood,
slightly relaxes the hardness of its muscles.

"I remember having seen favorable mention of Sir Sunderland's name in
the book I refer to--"

She again interposes. The young man watches her emotions with a
penetrating eye, conscious that he has touched a chord in which all the
milk of kindness is not dried up.

"It's a true copy of the family arms. Everybody has got to having arms
now-a-days. (She points to the indescribable scrawl over the
mantelpiece.) It was got through Herald King, of London, who they say
keeps her Majesty's slippers and the great seal of State. We were very
exact, you see. Yes, sir--we were very exact. Our vulgar people, you
see--I mean such as have got up by trade, and that sort of thing--went
to a vast expense in sending to England a man of great learning and much
aforethought, to ransack heraldry court and trace out their families.
Well, he went, lived very expensively, spent several years abroad, a