Said he: "Sure I am Lord Stirling and no one else; and shall wear my title however they dispute it who deny me my proper seat in their rotten House of Lords!" "I think you are very surely the true Lord Stirling," said I, "but I, on the other hand, most certainly am not a Stormont Murray. My name is John Drogue; and if I be truly also Viscount Stormont, it troubles me not at all, for my ambition is to be only American and to let the Stormonts glitter as they please and where." Lady Johnson came close to me and laid both hands upon my shoulders. "Jack," she pleaded, "be true to us. Be true to your gentle blood. Be true to your proper caste. God knows the King will have a very instant need of his gentlemen in America before we three see another summer here in County Tryon." I made no reply. What could I say to her? And, indeed, the matter of the Stormont Viscounty was distasteful, stale, and wearisome to me, and I cared absolutely nothing about it, though the landed gentry of Tryon were ever at pains to place me where I belonged,--if some were right,--and where I did not belong if others were righter still. For Lady Johnson, like many of her caste, believed that the second Viscount Stormont died without issue,--which was true,--and that the third Viscount had a son,--which is debatable. At any rate, David Murray became the fourth Viscount, and the claims of my remote ancestor went a-glimmering for so many years that, in 1705, we resumed our family name of the Northesks, which is Drogue; and in this natural manner it became my proper name. God knows I found it good enough to eat and sleep with, so that my Lord Stormont's capers in Paris never disturbed my dreams. Thank Heaven for that, too; and it was a sad day for my Lord Stormont when he tried to bully Benjamin Franklin; for the whole world is not yet done a-laughing at him. No, I have no desire to claim a Viscounty which our witty Franklin has made ridiculous with a single shaft of satire from his bristling repertoire. Thinking now of this, and reddening a little at the thought,--for no Stormont even of remotest kinship to the family can truly relish Mr. Franklin's sauce, though it dressed an undoubted goose,--I become far more than reconciled to the decision rendered in the House of Lords. * * * * * Two people who had come from the house, and who were advancing slowly toward us across the clipped grass, now engaged our full attention. The one we perceived to be Sir John Johnson himself; the other his lady's school friend and intimate companion, Claudia Swift, the toast of the British Army and of all respectable young Tories; and the "Sacharissa" of those verses made by the new and lively Adjutant General, Major André, who was then a captain.