was very pretty, even as I remember her: she died when he was about ten
years old. And she too was a relation of yours,--a Haughton by blood,--
but perhaps you will be ashamed of her, when I say she was a governess in
a rich mercantile family. She had been left an orphan. I believe old
Mr. Darrell (not that he was old then) married her because the Haughtons
could or would do nothing for her, and because she was much snubbed and
put upon, as I am told governesses usually are,--married her because,
poor as he was, he was still the head of both families, and bound to do
what he could for decayed scions. The first governess a Darrell, ever
married; but no true Darrell would have called that a mesalliance since
she was still a Haughton and 'Fors non mutat genus,'--Chance does not
change race."

"But how comes it that the Haughtons, my grandfather Haughton, I suppose,
would do nothing for his own kinswoman?"

"It was not your grandfather Robert Haughton, who was a generous man,--
he was then a mere youngster, hiding himself for debt,--but your great--
grandfather, who was a hard man and on the turf. He never had money to
give,--only money for betting. He left the Haughton estates sadly
clipped. But when Robert succeeded, he came forward, was godfather to
our Mr. Darrell, insisted on sharing the expense of sending him to Eton,
where he became greatly distinguished; thence to Oxford, where he
increased his reputation; and would probably have done more for him, only
Mr. Darrell, once his foot on the ladder, wanted no help to climb to the
top."

"Then my grandfather, Robert, still had the Haughton estates? Their last
relics had not been yet transmuted by Mr. Cox into squares and a
paragon?"