t abuse England
at great length and talk of his own valor, accomplishments, and
"paddygree" (as he very properly called the record that established his
connection with Brian Boroo and Irish kings generally), and a lady who
seemed to take the most astounding, unquenchable interest in the English
nobility, as more than one lady had seemed to him to do, to his great
annoyance.

"I don't know a bit about them, I assure you," he said to her; "but I
have the 'Peerage.' If you would like to see that, I will send it you
with pleasure."

This only diverted her conversation into a different but equally
distasteful channel,--the great distinction and antiquity of her own
family. It really seemed as though she had a dread of Mr. Heathcote's
leaving the country with some wrong impression on this important subject
and was determined that he should be put in possession of all the
information she had or imagined herself to have about it. She talked to
him about it so much that the poor man was at incredible pains to keep
out of her way.

"I don't care a brass copper about her," he complained to Edith; "and
if the family has been producing women like her as long as she says, and
is going on at it, all I can say is that it is a pity they have lasted
this long, and the sooner they die out the better. What do I care about
her family, pray? I never heard as much about family in all my life, I
give you my word, as I have done since I came to America. The stories
told me are something wonderful,--all about the two brothers that left
England, and all that, you know. They seem all to have come away in
pairs, like the animals in the ark. I said to one fellow that was
beginning with those two brothers, '_Couldn't you make it three_, don't
you think?' And you'll not believe me, but I speak quite without
exaggeration, when I say that one woman out in Raising assured me
gravely that she was descended from the houses of York and Lancaster!"

"_She didn't!"_ exclaimed Edith. "That is, if she did, she must have
been _crazy_; and I won't have you going back to England and giving
false impressions of us by repeating such stories. Promise me that you
will never repeat it there."

"Oh, that's all right," he replied soothingly. "It's an extreme case, I
grant, and I'll say no more about it if it vexes you, but it is a true
tale all the same. Howe was her name, I remember; and I felt like
saying,--I'll eat my hand if I understand Howe this can possibly