not to me, "Come too!" drawing him out into the
sunshine with a hand that will not loose its hold.

Of all Roland's line, this Herbert de Caxton was "the best and bravest!"
yet he had never named that ancestor to me,--never put any forefather in
comparison with the dubious and mythical Sir William. I now remembered
once that, in going over the pedigree, I had been struck by the name of
Herbert,--the only Herbert in the scroll,--and had asked, "What of him,
uncle?" and Roland had muttered something inaudible, and turned away.
And I remembered also that in Roland's room there was the mark on the
wall where a picture of that size had once hung. The picture had been
removed thence before we first came, but must have hung there for years
to have left that mark on the wall,--perhaps suspended by Bolt during
Roland's long Continental absence. "If ever I have a--" What were the
missing words? Alas! did they not relate to the son,--missed forever,
evidently not forgotten still?

CHAPTER IV.

My uncle sat on one side the fireplace, my mother on the other; and
I, at a small table between them, prepared to note down the results
of their conference; for they had met in high council, to assess their
joint fortunes,--determine what should be brought into the common stock
and set apart for the Civil List, and what should be laid aside as a
Sinking Fund. Now my mother, true woman as she was, had a womanly love
of show in her own quiet way,--of making "a genteel figure" in the eyes
of the neighborhood; of seeing that sixpence not only went as far as
sixpence ought to go, but that, in the going, it should emit a mild but
imposing splendor,--not, indeed, a gaudy flash, a startling
Borealian coruscation, which is scarcely within the modest and placid
idiosyncracies of sixpence,--but a gleam of gentle and benign light,
just to show where a sixpence had been, and allow you time to say
"Behold!" before

"The jaws of darkness did devour it up."

Thus, as I once before took occasion to apprise the reader, we had
always held a very respectable position in the neighborhood round our
square brick house; been as sociable as my father's habits would permit;
given our little tea-parties, and our occasional dinners, and, without
attempting to vie with our richer associates, there had always been
so exquisite a neatness, so notable a housekeeping, so thoughtful a
disposition, in short, of all the properties indigenous to a well-spent
sixp