outsiders, and they don't all belong to any one club--they're taken
in all sorts into all their clubs--but they're a clan, just the same;
and they have the clan feeling and they're just as much We, Us and
Company as any crowd you read about anywhere in the world. Most of
'em were here long before papa came, and the grandfathers of the girls
of my age knew each other, and--"

"I see," Bibbs interrupted, gravely. "Their ancestors fled together
from many a stricken field, and Crusaders' blood flows in their veins.
I always understood the first house was built by an old party of the
name of Vertrees who couldn't get along with Dan'l Boone, and hurried
away to these parts because Dan'l wanted him to give back a gun he'd
lent him."

Edith gave a little ejaculation of alarm. "You mustn't repeat that
story, Bibbs, even if it's true. The Vertreeses are THE best family,
and of course the very oldest here; they were an old family even
before Mary Vertrees's great-great-grandfather came west and founded
this settlement. He came from Lynn, Massachusetts, and they have
relatives there YET--some of the best people in Lynn!"

"No!" exclaimed Bibbs, incredulously.

"And there are other old families like the Vertreeses," she went
on, not heeding him; "the Lamhorns and the Kittersbys and the
J. Palmerston Smiths--"

"Strange names to me," he interrupted. "Poor things! None of them
have my acquaintance."