Amaryllis was receiving surprises to-day--John's face was full of emotion, his eyes were sparkling with hate as he spoke. How he must love everything connected with his home, and its honour, and its name--he could not be so very cold after all! She thought of the Russian's words about a family--the uselessness of its going on for generations, piling up possessions and narrowing its interests. What had the aims been of all these handsome men? She knew the earlier history a little, for even though she was of a distant branch they had been proud of the connection, and treasured the traditions belonging to it. But these were just dry facts of history which she knew, so now she asked: "John, what did any of them do? Did they accomplish great deeds?" He took her back to the beginning again and began to tell her of the achievements of each one. There would be three perhaps, one after another, who had filled high posts in the State, and indeed had been worthy of the name. Then would come one or two quiet plodding ones, who seemed to have done little but sit still and hold on. Then Denzil Ardayre, knight of Elizabeth's time, pleased Amaryllis most of all--though there had been greater soldiers, and more able politicians than he later on, culminating in Sir John Ardayre of George IV. days, who had hammered against pocket boroughs and corruption until he died an old man, the hour the Reform Bill swept aside abuses and the road to freedom was won. "How strange it seems that different ages produce more accentuated stamps of breeding than others," Amaryllis said, "even in the same families where the blood is all blue. Look, John! that Denzil and the rest of the Elizabethans are the most refined, aristocratic creatures you could imagine, in their little ruffs. Absolutely intellectual and cultivated faces and of old race--and then comes a James period, less intelligent, more round featured. And a Cavalier one, gay and gallant, aristocratic and chiselled also, but not nearly so clever looking as the Elizabethan. Then we get cadaverous William and Mary ones, they might be lawyers or business men, not that look of great gentlemen, and the Anne's and the first George's are really bucolic! And then that wonderfully refined, cultivated, intellectual finish seems to crop up in the later eighteenth century again. Have you noticed this, John? You can see it in every collection of miniatures and portraits even in the museums." John responded interestedly: "The Elizabethans were supremely cultivated gentlemen--no wonder that they look as they do--and their lives were always in their hands which gives them that air of insouciance." When the history of the family achievements had been told her down to John's father, she paused, still clinging to his arm, and said: