"Really! Now I see," said he, "you have the paternal line all correct, and you want to look up the line on the other side. That is very common; it is so seldom that one knows the line of ancestors on one's maternal side. Dork, then, was the name of your maternal grandfather." It struck me that a maternal grandfather must be a grandmother, but I didn't say so. "Can you tell me," said he, "whether it was he who emigrated from this country to America, or whether it was his father or his grandfather?" Now I hadn't said anything about the United States, for I had learned there was no use in wasting breath telling English people I had come from America, so I wasn't surprised at his question, but I couldn't answer it. "I can't say much about that," I said, "until I have found out something about the English branches of the family." "Very good," said he. "We will look over the records," and he took down a big book and turned to the letter D. He ran his finger down two or three pages, and then he began to shake his head. "Dork?" said he. "There doesn't seem to be any Dork, but here is Dorkminster. Now if that was your family name we'd have it all here. No doubt you know all about that family. It's a grand old family, isn't it? Isn't it possible that your grandfather or one of his ancestors may have dropped part of the name when he changed his residence to America?" Now I began to think hard; there was some reason in what the family-tree-man said. I knew very well that the same family name was often different in different countries, changes being made to suit climates and people. "Minster has a religious meaning, hasn't it?" said I. "Yes, madam," said he; "it relates to cathedrals and that sort of thing." Now, so far as I could remember, none of the things my mother had ever told me about her father was in any ways related to religion. They was mostly about horses; and although there is really no reason for the disconnection between horses and religion, especially when you consider the hymns with heavenly chariots in them must have had horses, it didn't seem to me that my grandfather could have made it a point of being religious, and perhaps he mightn't have cared for the cathedral part of his name, and so might have dropped it for convenience in signing, probably being generally in a hurry, judging from what my mother had told me. I said as much to Mr. Brandish, and he answered that he thought it was likely enough, and that that sort of thing was often done. "Now, then," said he, "let us look into the Dorkminster line and trace out your connection with that. From what place did your ancestors come?" It seemed to me that he was asking me a good deal more than he was telling me, and I said to him: "That is what I want to find out. What is the family home of the Dorkminsters?"