"Judge not, that ye be not judged.
"I came to call sinners, and not the righteous, to repentance."
This record seemed to hint vaguely at some sad story: "Susan, the beloved sister;" no precise data of the death—no surname! And then those two deprecating sentences, which seemed to plead for the dead.
I had been led to understand that Christian Meynell's daughters had both died in Yorkshire—one married, the other unmarried.
The last record in the book was the decease of James Halliday, my dear girl's grandfather.
After pondering long over the strangely-worded entry of Susan Meynell's death, I reflected that, with the aid of those mysterious powers Hook and Crook, I must contrive to possess myself of an exact copy of this leaf from a family history, if not of the original document. Again my duty to my Sheldon impelled me to be false to all my new-born instincts, and boldly give utterance to another bouncer.
"I am very much interested in a county history now preparing for the press," I said to my honoured uncle, who was engaged in a hand at cribbage with his wife; "and I really think this old leaf from a family Bible would make a very interesting page in that work."
I blushed for myself as I felt how shamefully I was imposing upon my newly-found kinsman's credulity. With scarcely any one but uncle Joe could I have dared to employ so shallow an artifice.
"Would it really, now?" said that confiding innocent. "Well, I suppose old papers, and letters, and such like, are uncommonly interesting to some folks. I can't say I care much about 'em myself."
"Would you have any objection to my taking a copy of these entries?" I asked.