Ran followed his guest to the room of books and gave him a chair and took another.
Then, however, instead of seating himself, Mr. Will Walling went to one of the book shelves and took down a large, heavy volume bound in red cloth and gold.
“This,” he said, as he laid it on the table and turned over the leaves, “is the last year’s edition of ‘Burke’s Landed Gentry of Great Britain and Ireland.’”
“Well?” carelessly inquired Ran.
“And this,” continued the lawyer, as he paused at an open page, “is the genealogy of the Hays, of Haymore.”
“Well?” again inquired Ran.
“I want you to look at it with me. I don’t wish to bore you to go over the whole history, with its marriages, births and deaths, but only to notice this fact that runs through the whole, from your first known ancestor, Arthur Hei, who married Edda, a daughter of Seebold, Earl of Northumberland, down to your grandfather, the late squire, who married Gentil, daughter of Pharoah Cooper, of Esling. Moor, Yorkshire.”
“She was a gypsy, and the child of a gypsy,” said Ran.
“Yes; still she is set down here as the daughter of a certain somebody. All your ‘forebyes’ have married the daughters of certain somebodies, from dukes down to gypsies.”
“Well, but what does all this talk tend to?” demanded Ran.