pale and ghostly in the mirrors. By and by I began to hear those cracks and rustles which one always hears when one sits up late at night. It wasn’t in the furniture, bless you! I know a great deal better than that; the old walnut and satin-wood was all seasoned by a century’s wear. I don’t pretend to say what it was: but I know that I was made very uneasy sitting all by myself, with the fire out, in that big room. When it drew near twelve o’clock, I went to bed. CHAPTER IV. I might as well, before all this description of our day’s talk and cogitations, have said first who we were. The Mortimers are an old Cheshire family. We came originally from the other side of the Dee; but we have been settled here in the Park since Henry the Seventh’s time, when to be sure Welshmen were in fashion. The old tower of Wyfod, over Llangollen way, was the cradle of our family. So we have not travelled very far from our origin. We have always been, since we came to the Cheshire side, tolerably prosperous and prudent, not mixing much with politics, having a pretty eye for a bargain, and letting other people get along in their own way; I say so quite frankly, not being ashamed of it. Once, I confess, I felt a little sore that we had no crusading knights nor wild cavaliers among our ancestors; but that, of course, was when I was young. Now I take a different view of affairs. Cavaliers and crusading knights have been generally very expensive luxuries for their families, and must have done a great deal more mischief than a man, however well disposed to it, could do at home. Another circumstance has been good for our purse, but not so good (I fear--so at least it threatens at the present moment) for the prolongation of the race. The Mortimers have never had large families. I suppose few English houses of our rank, or indeed of any rank, can count so few cousins and collateral branches. We have relations, certainly, by my mother’s side, who was one of the Stamfords of Lincolnshire; but except this visionary Richard Arkwright (did ever mortal hear of such a name for a Mortimer!), there is not a single individual remaining of our own name and blood to inherit the property after us, which is a very sad thing to say, and indeed, in some degree, a sort of disgrace to us. The family allowance of children for ever so long has been somewhat about one son and one daughter. The daughter has married off, as was natural, or died unmarried, as, indeed, for a Miss Mortimer, was more natural still; and the son has become the squire, and had a son and a daughter in his turn. In Queen Anne’s time, the then squire, whose name was Lewis, made an unfortunate divergence from the usual custom. He had two girls only; but one of them married, and her husband took our name and arms; the other died very opportunely, and left her sister in full possession, so no harm was done. It is, however, a saying in the family, that the Mortimers are to end in two sisters, and that after them the