"Then we are related, you and I, my dear. Not closely related, but even so, there is a relationship. I suppose you might say we are very distant cousins. Now--" "I never was the one to bother much about family." "Ah, but you would have bothered, as you call it, had you but known. Why, my dear child, you are related to some of the finest and oldest families in the South. Let me tell you who you are." They sat there then, she listening and secretly amused at first and on the whole rather pleased with herself, and he all afire with the enthusiasm which the aging so often give to trivialities. While his bacon grew stiffer and his egg grew limper, each according to its own special chemistry, in the nest of their pooled cold greases, he ramified a luxuriant family tree, trunk, branch and twig, dowering her with a vast wealth of kinspeople whose names she knew she never would be able to remember--Waltours, Bullochs, Gordons, Telfairs, Hustouns. It seemed that among her forbears commonplace persons had found mighty few places. They had been statesmen, educators, railroad builders, gracious belles, warriors, orators, noble mothers, racers of fast horses, owners of broad fertile acres, kindly masters and mistresses of hundreds of black slaves, and their memories were a noble inheritance for her to carry onward with her. Just trying to keep track of the main lines almost made her head ache. "My dear young lady," he was saying as they got up together to quit the dining-room, emptied now of all except them, "we must see more of each other while we both are in this strange city. We who are of the old South will never lack for a congenial topic of conversation when we are thrown together. Northerners might not understand it, but you, with the legacy of blood that is in your veins--you will understand. After you, my dear; after you, please." This was when they had gone as far as the door into the hallway. "And now then," he was saying, as they passed along the hall, "let me tell you something more about your Grandfather Lamar's estate and domestic establishment. The house itself I remember very clearly, as a youth. The Yankee general, Sherman, burnt it. It was white with...."