o hang on him, and, more than once, his voice
trembled.

"I shall tell you," said he, "what I see--what I foresee--and then,
with great diffidence, what I advise.

"I see--what naturalists call a reversion in race, a boy who resembles
in color and features neither of his parents, and, indeed, bears little
resemblance to any of the races that have inhabited England since
history was written. He suggests rather some Oriental type."

Sir Charles turned round in his chair, with a sigh, and said, "We are
to have a romance, it seems."

Lady Bassett stared with all her eyes, and began to change color.

The theorist continued, with perfect composure, "I don't undertake to
account for it with any precision. How can I? Perhaps there is Moorish
blood in your family, and here it has revived; you look incredulous,
but there are plenty of examples, ay, and stronger than this: every
child that is born resembles some progenitor; how then do you account
for Julia Pastrana, a young lady who dined with me last week, and sang
me 'Ah perdona,' rather feebly, in the evening? Bust and figure like
any other lady, hand exquisite, arms neatly turned, but with long,
silky hair from the elbow to the wrist. Face, ugh! forehead made of
black leather, eyes all pupil, nose an excrescence, chin pure monkey,
face all covered with hair; briefly, a type extinct ten thousand years
before Adam, yet it could revive at this time of day. Compared with La
Pastrana, and many much weaker examples of antiquity revived, that I
have seen, your Mauritanian son is no great marvel, after all."

"This is a _little_ too far-fetched," said Sir Charles, satirically;
"Bella's father was a very dark man, and it is a tradition in our
family that all the Bassetts were as black as ink till they married
with you Rolfes, in the year 1684."

"Oho!" said Rolfe, "is it so? See how discussion brings out things."

"And then," said Lady Bassett, "Charles dear, tell Mr. Rolfe what I
think."

"Ay, do," said Rolfe; "that will be a new form of circumlocution."

Sir Charles complied, with a smile. "Lady Bassett's theory is, that
children derive their nature quite as much from their wet-nurses as
from their parents, and she thinks the faults we deplore in Reginald
are to be traced to his nurse; by-the-by, she is a dark woman too."

"Well," said Rolfe, "there's a good deal of truth in that, as far as
regards the disposition. But I never heard color so accounted for; yet
why not?