F. Colburn (Francis Colburn) Adams
Chapter 30
the milk of kindness is not dried up.
"It's a true copy of the family arms. Everybody has got to having
arms now-a-days. (She points to the indescribable scrawl over the
mantelpiece.) It was got through Herald King, of London, who they
say keeps her Majesty's slippers and the great seal of State. We
were very exact, you see. Yes, sir-we were very exact. Our vulgar
people, you see-I mean such as have got up by trade, and that sort
of thing-went to a vast expense in sending to England a man of great
learning and much aforethought, to ransack heraldry court and trace
out their families. Well, he went, lived very expensively, spent
several years abroad, and being very clever in his way, returned,
bringing them all pedigrees of the very best kind. With only two
exceptions, he traced them all down into noble blood. These two, the
cunning fellow had it, came of martyrs. And to have come of the
blood of martyrs, when all the others, as was shown, came of noble
blood, so displeased-the most ingenious (the old lady shakes her
head regrettingly) can't please everybody-the living members of
these families, that they refused to pay the poor man for his
researches, so he was forced to resort to a suit at law. And to this
day (I don't say it disparagingly of them!) both families stubbornly
refuse to accept the pedigree. They are both rich grocers, you see!
and on this account we were very particular about ours."
The young man thought it well not to interrupt the old woman's
display of weakness, inasmuch as it might produce a favorable change
in her feelings.
"And now, young man, what mission have you besides love?" she
inquires, adding an encouraging look through her spectacles.
"I am come to intercede--"
"You needn't talk of interceding with me; no you needn't! I've
nothing to intercede about"--she twitches her head spitefully.
"In behalf of your son."
"There-there! I knew there was some mischief. You're a Catholic! I
knew it. Never saw one of your black-coated flock about that there