"Then," said I, "maybe you can tell me something about the drift of things here. For--not to boggle about it--I am in some uneasiness, Miss Smith. These people--this man and woman who I hear have settled themselves upon Captain Pendarves of late--who are they? what are they?" As I spoke we emerged upon the stone-paved walk leading to our kitchen door; it had been picked free of weeds, and the currant-bushes on either side trimly harnessed up to a set of stakes. A white curtain flounced behind the old lattice; there was a row of flowering geraniums in pots upon the sill. Through the open door you might see a clear fire and Mary Smith's saucepans glowing on the wall. The place, I thought, wore, for a kitchen, the best air conceivable of decent and humble dignity; nor would one have supposed that mere thrift and cleanliness could be so comely. I turned to her with some such words, and found her facing me, so much of haggard trouble in her eyes that I stopped, aghast. "Sir," she said, twisting her fingers, "I see you do not understand--I thought you knew. I--I am the woman you speak of. Your grandfather is within, and the other--the man--with him." III Our old house being designed and built with a shiplike compactness, there was but one room on the ground floor besides the kitchen and its offices. It was a plain, comfortable place, wainscoted about, with shelves and lockers in the whimsical copy of a vessel's cabin. And it contained the single work of art our establishment could show; that is, a portrait of my grandfather's grandfather,--he who founded this house,--in a finicking attitude, with a brocade coat and a pair of compasses. In his rear were to be seen a pillar and a red velvet curtain, and (distantly) a fine storm of clouds and lightning. Never was a respectable old sailorman so misrepresented; but all his descendants except one regarded this gaudy daub with almost religious veneration. Every family has its one great man; the admiral was ours. His was the distinction of being the only Pendarves who had ever managed to amass a fortune. It had dribbled through the fingers of succeeding generations; but there was a tradition that some part of it, buried or otherwise secreted with an admirable forethought by the old gentleman, might yet be discovered, to the further glorification of our house.