The objections were well taken. So far as the ancestry of the Slocomb
family was concerned, it was a trifle indefinite. It really could not be
traced back farther than the day of the major's arrival at Pocomoke,
notwithstanding the major's several claims that his ancestors came over
in the Mayflower, that his grandfather fought with General Washington, and
that his own early life had been spent on the James River. These
statements, to thoughtful Pocomokians, seemed so conflicting and
improbable, that his neighbors and acquaintances ascribed them either to
that total disregard for salient facts which characterized the major's
speech, or to the vagaries of that rich and vivid imagination which had
made his conquest of the widow so easy and complete.

Gradually, however, through the influence of his wife, and because of his
own unruffled good-humor, the antipathy had worn away. As years sped on,
no one, except the proudest and loftiest Pocomokian, would have cared to
trace the Slocomb blood farther back than its graft upon the Talbot tree.
Neither would the major. In fact, the brief honeymoon of five years left
so profound an impression upon his after life, that, to use his own words,
his birth and marriage had occurred at the identical moment,--he had never
lived until then.

There was no question in the minds of his neighbors as to whether the
major maintained his new social position on Crab Island with more than
ordinary liberality. Like all new vigorous grafts on an old stock, he not
only blossomed out with extraordinary richness, but sucked the sap of the
primeval family tree quite dry in the process. In fact, it was universally
admitted that could the constant drain of his hospitality have been
brought clearly to the attention of the original proprietor of the estate,
its draft-power would have raised that distinguished military gentleman