he becomes mysterious, and almost open to suspicion. It begins
to be known that nobody knows anything of such a man, and even
friends become afraid. It is certainly convenient to be able to
allude, if it be but once in a year, to some blood relation.

Ferdinand Lopez, who in other respects had much in his
circumstances on which to congratulate himself, suffered trouble
in his mind respecting his ancestors such as I have endeavoured
to describe. He did not know very much himself, but what little
he did know he kept altogether to himself. He had no father or
mother, no uncle, aunt, brother or sister, no cousin even whom he
could mention in a cursory way to his dearest friend. He
suffered no doubt;--but with Spartan consistency he so hid his
trouble from the world that no one knew that he suffered. Those
with whom he lived, and who speculated often and wondered much as
to who he was never dreamed that the silent man's reticence was a
burden to himself. At no special conjuncture of his life, at no
period which could be marked with the finger of the observer, did
he glaringly abstain from any statement which at the moment might
be natural. He never hesitated, blushed, or palpably laboured at
concealment; but the fact remained that though a great many men
and not a few women knew Ferdinand Lopez very well, none of them
knew whence he had come, or what was his family.

He was a man, however, naturally reticent, who never alluded to
his own affairs unless in pursuit of some object the way to which
was clear before his eyes. Silence therefore on a matter which
is common in the mouths of most men was less difficult to him
than to another, and the result less embarrassing. Dear old
Jones, who tells his friends at the club of every pound that he