Sir _Nicholas Louvaine_, was great-great-grandmother unto _Father_: so they twain be cousins but four and an half times removed: and, good lack, what is this? Surely, I need not to plume me upon Mistress _Jane Radcliffe_ her notice and favour. If the _Radcliffes_ be an old house, as in very deed they be, so be the _Veres_ and the _Louvaines_ both: to say nought of the _Edens_, that have dwelt in _Kent-dale_ these thousand years at the least. But one thing will I never own, and that is of Mynheer _Stuyvesant_, which shall say, and hold to it like a leech, that our family be all _Dutch_ folk. He will have it that the _Louvaines_ must needs have sprung from _Louvain_ in the Low Countries; but of all things doth he make me mad [angry: a word still used in the north of England] when he saith the great House of _Vere_ is _Dutch_ of origin. For he will have it a weir to catch fish, when all the world doth know that _Veritas_ is _Latin_ for truth, and _Vere_ cometh of that, or else of _vir_, as though it should say, one that is verily a man, and no base coward loon. And 'tis all foolishness for to say, as doth _Mynheer_, that the old _Romans_ had no surnames like ours, but only the name of the family, such like as _Cornelius_ or _Julius_, which ran more akin unto our _Christian_ names. I believe it not, and I won't. Why, was there not an Emperor, or a Prince at the least, that was called _Lucius Verus_? and what is that but _Vere_? 'Tis as plain as the barber's pole, for all _Mynheer_, and that will I say. Howbeit, I am forgetting my business, and well-nigh that it is _Sunday_. So have back. Church over, all we come home, in the very order as we went: and in the hall come _Moses_ a-purring to us, and a-rubbing of her head against _Nell_; and there was _Dan_ a-turning round and round after his tail, and _Nan_, that had a ball of paper, on her back a-laking therewith. _So_ we to doff our hoods, and then down into the hall, where was supper served: for it was over late for four-hours [Note 2], and of a communion _Sunday_ we never get none. Then _Nell_ to read a chapter from Master Doctor _Luther_ his magnifical commentary: and by the mass, I was glad it was not me. Then--(Eh, happy woman be my dole! but if _Father_ shall see that last line, it shall be a broad shilling out of my pocket at the least. He is most mighty nice, is _Father_, touching that make of talk. I believe I catched it up of old _Matthias_. I must in very deed essay to leave it off; and I do own, 'tis not over seemly to swear of a _Sunday_, for I suppose it is swearing, though 'tis not profane talk. Come, _Father_, you must o'erlook it this once: and I will never do so no more--at the least, not till the next time.)