As far back as when we was in Chedcombe I had had a good deal of talk with Miss Pondar about ancestors and families. I told her that my forefathers came from this country, which I was very sure of, judging from my feelings; but as I couldn't tell her any particulars, I didn't go into the matter very deep. But I did say there was a good many points that I would like to set straight, and asked her if she knew where I could find out something about English family trees. She said she had heard there was a big heraldry office in London, but if I didn't want to go there, she knew of a person who was a family-tree-man. He had an office in London, and his business was to go around and tend to trees of that kind which had been neglected, and to get them into shape and good condition. She gave me his address, and I had kept the thing quiet in my mind until now. I found the family-tree-man, whose name was Brandish, in a small room not too clean, over a shop not far from St. Paul's Churchyard. He had another business, which related to patent poison for flies, and at first he thought I had come to see him about that, but when he found out I wanted to ask him about my family tree his face brightened up. When I told Mr. Brandish my business the first thing he asked me was my family name. Of course I had expected this, and I had thought a great deal about the answer I ought to give. In the first place, I didn't want to have anything to do with my father's name. I never had anything much to do with him, because he died when I was a little baby, and his name had nothing high-toned about it, and it seemed to me to belong to that kind of a family that you would be better satisfied with the less you looked up its beginnings; but my mother's family was a different thing. Nobody could know her without feeling that she had sprung from good roots. It might have been from the stump of a tree that had been cut down, but the roots must have been of no common kind to send up such a shoot as she was. It was from her that I got my longings for the romantic. She used to tell me a good deal about her father, who must have been a wonderful man in many ways. What she told me was not like a sketch of his life, which I wish it had been, but mostly anecdotes of what he said and did. So it was my mother's ancestral tree I determined to find, and without saying whether it was on my mother's or father's side I was searching for ancestors, I told Mr. Brandish that Dork was the family name. "Dork," said he; "a rather uncommon name, isn't it? Was your father the eldest son of a family of that name?" Now I was hoping he wouldn't say anything about my father. "No, sir," said I; "it isn't that line that I am looking up. It is my mother's. Her name was Dork before she was married."