My Aunt nodded with an indulgent stateliness. "There seems to be the
possibility of it."

"Royal blood in my veins, Aunt?"

"I have said so, Augustus. Why make me repeat it?"

It was now, I fear, that I met Aunt Carola in that unfitting spirit, that
volatile mood, which, as I have said already, her remarks often rouse in
me.

"And from what sovereign may I hope that I--?"

"If you will consult a recent admirable compilation, entitled The
American Almanach de Gotha, you will find that Henry the Seventh--"

"Aunt, I am so much relieved! For I think that I might have hesitated to
trace it back had you said--well--Charles the Second, for example, or
Elizabeth."

At this point I should have been wise to notice my Aunt's eye; but I did
not, and I continued imprudently:--

"Though why hesitate? I have never heard that there was anybody present
to marry Adam and Eve, and so why should we all make such a to-do
about--"

"Augustus!"

She uttered my name in that quiet but prodigious tone to which I have