“And therein showed yourself the kindly sensible woman you ever were, wife. But there is more to the matter. Ralph is an honest fellow, and after some days of looking into the matter he confessed the justice of my claim. I tell you, Bab, we went through those old parchments like two weasels from the Inns of Court; Morton of Clifford’s could have been no subtler; we had out the old deeds from the muniment-room, and sent to Chorley Church for the registry book, where are set down the marriage of my father and mother and my own birth and baptism; and I showed him Queen Bess’s commission to her well-beloved Myles Standish, born on that same date, and at the last, over a good pottle of sack, he confessed to me that I was in the right, but added, with a smile too sly for a Standish to wear, that I should find it well-nigh impossible to prove the matter at law, for, as he was not ashamed to say to my beard, neither he nor his lawyers would help me, and he knew, though he had the decency not to say it, I have no money to tickle the palms of the judges, the commissioners, the court officials, and the Lord Harry alone knows who they are, but all too many for me.” “Then your cousin is a knave and a robber!” “Nay, nay, Bab! Nay, I know not that one could expect a man to strip himself of half his estate if the law bade him keep it”-- “You would, Myles.” “Ah, well, I was ever a thriftless loon, with no trader’s blood in my veins to show me how to keep or to get money. Ralph’s grandmother was fathered by a man who made his money in commerce.” And the captain smiled as one well content with his own chivalrous incapacity, then hastily went on. “But though Ralph would not give me mine own, nor even let me take it if I tried, he had an offer to make on his part. His oldest son, Alexander by name, was then an infant of two years, a sturdy little knave already scorning his petticoats, and Ralph proposed that we should solemnly betroth him then and there to our Lora”-- “But Lora was not born when you were in England five years ago, Myles.” “No; but I knew that our two little lads must in course of time have a sister, and counted on her. Truth to tell, Barbara, Ralph and I picked a name for her off the family tree. Lora.” “If I had known it, the child never should have borne the name, and if I could I would change it now!” And Barbara, seriously angry, rose from her chair and would have left the room, but her husband detained her. “There, look you, now! I knew you would take it amiss, and told Ralph so, and he bade me keep it to myself, at all odds till the girl was born and named, and so I have. And yet I do not see what angers you so, Barbara, except that you ever favored your mother’s family, and held your Standish blood too cheap.” “That quarrel well-nigh parted us ere ever we came together, Myles. Haply it had been better if we had been content to rest simply cousins and never married.”