Atherly Hotel and its gilded bar-rooms were now called. Even at the last
moment, however, the new title of "Atherly" hung in the balance. The
romantic daughter of the pastor had said that Mr. Atherly should
be called "Atherly of Atherly," an aristocratic title so strongly
suggestive of an innovation upon democratic principles that it was not
until it was discreetly suggested that everybody was still free to call
him "Atherly, late of Rough and Ready," that opposition ceased.

Possibly this incident may have first awakened him to the value of his
name, and some anxiety as to its origin. Roughly speaking, Atherly's
father was only a bucolic emigrant from "Mizzouri," and his mother had
done the washing for the camp on her first arrival. The Atherlys had
suffered on their overland journey from drought and famine, with the
addition of being captured by Indians, who had held them captive for ten
months. Indeed, Mr. Atherly, senior, never recovered from the effects
of his captivity, and died shortly after Mrs. Atherly had given birth
to twins, Peter and Jenny Atherly. This was scant knowledge for Peter
in the glorification of his name through his immediate progenitors; but
"Atherly of Atherly" still sounded pleasantly, and, as the young lady
had said, smacked of old feudal days and honors. It was believed
beyond doubt, even in their simple family records,--the flyleaf of a
Bible,--that Peter Atherly's great-grandfather was an Englishman who
brought over to his Majesty's Virginian possessions his only son, then
a boy. It was not established, however, to what class of deportation
he belonged: whether he was suffering exile from religious or judicial
conviction, or if he were only one of the articled "apprentices"
who largely made up the American immigration of those days. Howbeit,
"Atherly" was undoubtedly an English name, even suggesting respectable
and landed ancestry, and Peter Atherly was proud of it. He looked
somewhat askance upon his Irish and German fellow citizens, and talked