th good morning, and beg you to bear my
words in mind."

When he was fairly gone, George came up to his cousin and laid his
hand upon his arm.

"Why do you insist upon quarrelling with me, Philip? it always ends
like this, you always get the worst of it."

But Philip's only reply was to shake him roughly off, and to vanish
through the door towards the lake. George regarded his departing form
with a peculiar smile, which was rendered even more peculiar by the
distortion of his swollen features.

CHAPTER II

It is difficult to imagine any study that would prove more fascinating
in itself or more instructive in its issues, than the examination of
the leading characteristics of individual families as displayed
through a series of generations. But it is a subject that from its
very nature is more or less unapproachable, since it is but little
that we know even of our immediate ancestors. Occasionally in glancing
at the cracking squares of canvas, many of which cannot even boast a
name, but which alone remain to speak of the real and active life, the
joys and griefs, the sins and virtues that centred in the originals of
those hard daubs and of ourselves, we may light upon a face that about
six generations since was the counterpart of the little boy upon our
shoulder, or the daughter standing at our side. In the same way, too,
partly through tradition and partly by other means, we are sometimes
able to trace in ourselves and in our children the strong development
of characteristics that distinguished the race centuries ago.

If local tradition and such records of their individual lives as
remained are worthy of any faith, it is beyond a doubt that the
Caresfoots of Bratham Abbey had handed down their own hard and
peculiar cast of character from father to son unaffected in the main
by the continual introduction of alien blood on the side of the
mother.

The history of the Caresfoot family had nothing remarkable about it.
They had been yeomen at Bratham from time immemorial, perhaps ever
since the village had become a geographical fact; but it was on the
dissolution of the monasteries that they first became of any
importance in the county. Bratham Abbey, which had shared the common
fate, was granted by Henry VIII. to a certain courtier, Sir Charles
Varry by name. For two years the owner never came near his new
possession, but one day he appeared in the village, and riding to the
house