“Of course. I don’t mean to be a nun. You shall have the pleasure of seeing me in gorgeous array quite frequently, no doubt.”
“Well, I’m glad of it. I don’t want you to be a crank,” replied Persis. “What worthy daughters of our father we shall be, to be sure,—you a kindergarten professor, I a B.A. or a M.A. or some sort of an A or a D or something, and Mell—what about you, Pigeon?”
“I don’t know. I think I shall try genealogy, and hunt up people’s pedigrees. I’d like that.”
Her sisters laughed. “You certainly would,” they declared. “How about Audrey? Has she come to the end of her pedigree yet?”
“I think she must have. She has traced it back to Adam,” replied Mellicent, gravely.
A shout of laughter came from Lisa and Persis. “How did she manage to do it?” they asked.
“Oh, she got hold of some book on Irish pedigrees, and she found out that her mother’s people were descended from one of the old Celtic kings, and he was descended from Ir, the son of King Milesius of Spain, and his lineage was given all the way back to Adam. It’s all down in black and white. I saw it. I can’t remember many of the names, but Noah and Methuselah are among them.”
“That is the most ridiculous thing I ever heard,” Lisa asserted. “I hope Audrey has more sense than to believe it.”
“Of course she believes it,” returned Mellicent, somewhat offended. “You would, too, if you saw the book; it’s as clear as day, and it’s very interesting.”
“There’s no doubt of our all claiming Adam,” remarked Persis, “but William the Conqueror, or, as Porter vulgarly puts it, ‘Billy the Corn-curer,’ is quite as far back as I should dare go. We shall have to call Audrey the Milesian. I am going to tease her by telling her we have a Welsh ancestor somewhere, and that they say Adam only comes half-way down a Welsh pedigree.”