"Oh, that would be too delightful!" said Mary. "I wonder how we could
find out? Have you no family papers?"

_I_. "There were lots of them, in a horse-hair trunk, but I don't know
where they are now. What good would family papers have been to me?
Ibbetson took charge of them when I changed my name. I suppose his
lawyers have got them."

_She_. "Happy thought; we will do without lawyers. Let us go round to
your old house, and make Gogo paint the quarterings over again for us,
and look over his shoulder."

Happy thought, indeed! We drank our coffee and went straight to my old
house, with the wish (immediate father to the deed) that Gogo should be
there, once more engaged in his long forgotten accomplishment of
painting coats of arms.

It was a beautiful Sunday morning, and we found Gogo hard at work at a
small table by an open window. The floor was covered with old deeds and
parchments and family papers; and le beau Pasquier, at another table,
was deep in his own pedigree, making notes on the margin--an occupation
in which he delighted--and unconsciously humming as he did so. The sunny
room was filled with the penetrating soft sound of his voice, as a
conservatory is filled with the scent of its flowers.

By the strangest inconsistency my dear father, a genuine republican at
heart (for all his fancied loyalty to the white lily of the Bourbons), a
would-be scientist, who in reality was far more impressed by a clever
and industrious French mechanic than by a prince (and would, I think,