“Octavia, Agrippina, and Poppæa,” I exclaimed. “What could have induced him to give these names to his daughters?”
“Classical taste, I suppose,” Aleck said. “No doubt the old gentleman was fond of Roman history, and the names took his fancy. If he had had a son he would probably have called him Nero. Poppæa, the youngest, is my maternal ancestress. I inherit my beauty from her.”
Here he laughed heartily, and then went on:
“Agrippina, the second daughter, was Thea’s great-grandmother, and called no doubt after the good Agrippina, and not the bad one, who had that ducking in the sea at the hands of her precious son. As to the eldest daughter, she ought to have felt honored to be named for the poor little abused Empress Octavia; and then it is a pretty name.”
“Yes, indeed,” I said, “and it is my middle name, which my grandmother and my great-grandmother bore before me.”
“That’s odd,” he rejoined, looking curiously at me. “Yes, very odd. Suppose we go over Thea’s branch of the tree first, as that is the oldest line to which a direct heir can be found, and consequently gives her the Morton estate. First, Agrippina Hepburn married John Austin, and had one child, Charlotte Poppæa, who married Tom Haynes, and bore him one daughter, Sophia, and two sons, James and John. This John, by the way, I have heard, was the young man whom Miss Keziah wished your Aunt Beriah to marry, and failing in that she wished your father to marry Sophia. But neither plan worked, for both died, and James married Victoria Snead, of Louisville, and had one daughter, Dorothea Victoria, otherwise Thea, my promised wife, and the great-great-grandaughter of old Amos Hepburn. As I, although several years older than Thea, am in the third and youngest branch of the tree, I have no claim on the Morton estate; neither would Thea have, if I could find the missing link in the first and oldest branch, that of Octavia, who was married in Port Rush, Ireland, to Mr. McMahon, and had twins, Augustus Octavius, and Octavia Augusta. You see she, too, was classically inclined, like her father. Well, Augustus Octavius died, and Octavia Augusta married Henry Gale, a hatter, in Leamington, England, and emigrated to America in 18—, and settled in New York, where all trace of her is lost. Nor can I by any possible means find anything about her, except that Henry Gale died, but whether he left children I do not know. Presumably he did, and their descendants would be the real heirs to the Morton property, if that clause holds good. Do you see the point? or, as Thea would say, do you tumble?”
He repeated his question in a louder tone, as I did not answer him, but sat staring at the unfinished branch of the Hepburn tree. I did tumble nearly off the seat, and only kept myself from doing so entirely by clutching Aleck’s arm and holding it so tightly that he winced a little as he moved away from me, and said: “What’s the matter? Has something stung you?”
“No,” I replied, with a gasp, and a feeling that I was choking, or fainting, or both.
I had followed him closely through Agrippina’s line, and had felt a little bored when he began on Octavia’s, but only for an instant, and then I was all attention, and felt my blood prickling in my veins and saw rings of fire dancing before my eyes, as I glanced at the names, as familiar to me as old friends.
“Aleck,” I whispered, for I could not speak aloud, “these are all my ancestors, I am sure, for do you think it possible for two Octavias and two McMahons to have been married in Port Rush and had twins whom they called Octavia Augusta and Augustus Octavius, and for Augustus to die and Octavia to marry a Mr. Gale, a hatter, in Leamington, and emigrate to New York?”