him:

"The Athelnys have lived there for seven centuries, my boy. Ah, if you saw
the chimney-pieces and the ceilings!"

There was a cupboard in the wainscoting and from this he took a family
tree. He showed it to Philip with child-like satisfaction. It was indeed
imposing.

"You see how the family names recur, Thorpe, Athelstan, Harold, Edward;
I've used the family names for my sons. And the girls, you see, I've given
Spanish names to."

An uneasy feeling came to Philip that possibly the whole story was an
elaborate imposture, not told with any base motive, but merely from a wish
to impress, startle, and amaze. Athelny had told him that he was at
Winchester; but Philip, sensitive to differences of manner, did not feel
that his host had the characteristics of a man educated at a great public
school. While he pointed out the great alliances which his ancestors had
formed, Philip amused himself by wondering whether Athelny was not the son
of some tradesman in Winchester, auctioneer or coal-merchant, and whether
a similarity of surname was not his only connection with the ancient
family whose tree he was displaying.

LXXXVIII

There was a knock at the door and a troop of children came in. They were
clean and tidy, now. Their faces shone with soap, and their hair was
plastered down; they were going to Sunday school under Sally's charge.
Athelny joked with them in his dramatic, exuberant fashion, and you could
see that he was devoted to them all. His pride in their good health and
their good looks was touching. Philip felt that they were a little shy in
his presence, and when their father sent them off they fled from the room
in evident relief. In a few minutes Mrs. Athelny appeared. She had taken
her hair out of the curling pins and now wore an elaborate fringe. She had
on a plain black dress, a hat with cheap flowers, and was forcing her
hands, red and coarse from much work, into black kid gloves.

"I'm going to church, Athelny," she said. "There's nothing you'll be
wanting, is there?"

"Only your prayers, my Betty."

"They won't do you much good, you're too far gone for that," she smiled.
Then, turning to Philip, she drawled: "I can't get him to go to church.
He's no better than an atheist."

"Doesn't she look like Rubens' second wife?" cried Athelny. "Wouldn't she
look splendid in a seventeenth-century costume? That's the sort of wife to
marry, my boy. Look at her."

"I believe you'd talk the hind leg