She turned to the first comer.
"I hope so. My name is Humphrey Woodroffe."
"Oh, this is delightful! May I ask what your branch has been doing all these years?"
"I have a genealogy at home. We have had no more Lord Mayors or Archbishops. A buccaneer or two; a captain under Charles the First; a judge under William the Third; and an Anglo-Indian, my father, now dead, of some distinction."
"Your branch has done more creditably than mine. And yours, Cousin Dick?"
He laughed. "We went down in the world, and stayed there. Some of us assisted in colonizing Virginia, in the last century, by going out in the transports. There is a tradition of highwaymen; some of us had quarters permanently in the King's Bench. I am a musician, and a mime, and a small dramatist. Yet we have always kept up the memory of the Sheriff."
"Never mind, Dick," said Molly; "you shall raise your branch again."
He shook his head. "There is not so much staying power," he said, "in a Sheriff as in a Lord Mayor."
Hilarie observed him curiously. "Why," she said, "you two are strangely alike. Do you observe the resemblance, Molly?"