“Only of Joan’s--my sister’s--husband. It is not bragging,” said Lydia, with a little blush, yet a slight elevation of her head as well, “but we are very different from the Selbys, Mr. Brotherton. Many people thought Joan made a very poor marriage. I don’t think so, for she is fond of Philip, and he is so good; but the Joscelyns are the oldest family--I don’t speak out of vanity--the oldest family in the county. We used to be great people,” said Liddy, laughing, but very serious all the same, “in the old days.” “I always knew,” said Brotherton, “that it was an old name.” “Oh, there are all sorts of people who have old names; but we are the real people; if you stay long we will show you the old tower. There have been Joscelyns in it ever since there was any history at all.” She gave her head a slight fling backwards, and laughed again, half at herself--but yet Lydia meant every word she said. Young Brotherton, for his part, had been brought up in more enlightened circles, and would have thought of himself that he failed in that “sense of humour” which is the modern preservation from all absurdities, had he spoken of his family in this way. He held his tongue on the subject, and thought that he esteemed one name as much as another, and was no respector of persons; and he laughed in his heart at Lydia’s brag, and admired, with an indulgent sense of superiority, to see how this sentiment of family pride kindled her eyes and elevated her head. But all the same he was impressed by it. It produced its effect upon him, as it does upon every Englishman. He liked the boast, of which he did not fail to see the ludicrous side, and which his more cultivated taste would have entirely prevented him from putting forth in his own person--but in Liddy he liked it, and laughed, yet was more pleased with her and his connection with her. She carried it in her face, he thought, and in every movement of her untutored, yet graceful, carriage. It did not occur to him to think that homely Joan, soberly speeding along the road in her phaeton, had all the same advantages of blood.