Mr Coningham was at my door by ten o’clock, and we set out together for Umberden Church. It was a cold clear morning. The dying Autumn was turning a bright thin defiant face upon the conquering Winter. I was in great spirits, my mind being full of Mary Osborne. At one moment I saw but her own ordinary face, only what I had used to regard as dulness I now interpreted as the possession of her soul in patience; at another I saw the glorified countenance of my Athanasia, knowing that, beneath the veil of the other, this, the real, the true face ever lay. Once in my sight the frost-clung flower had blossomed; in full ideal of glory it had shone for a moment, and then folding itself again away, had retired into the regions of faith. And while I knew that such could dawn out of such, how could I help hoping that from the face of the universe, however to my eyes it might sometimes seem to stare like the seven-days dead, one morn might dawn the unspeakable face which even Moses might not behold lest he should die of the great sight? The keen air, the bright sunshine, the swift motion--all combined to raise my spirits to an unwonted pitch; but it was a silent ecstasy, and I almost forgot the presence of Mr Coningham. When he spoke at last, I started. ‘I thought from your letter you had something to tell me, Mr Cumbermede,’ he said, coming alongside of me. ‘Yes, to be sure. I have been reading my grannie’s papers, as I told you.’ I recounted the substance of what I had found in them. ‘Does it not strike you as rather strange that all this should have been kept a secret from you?’ he asked. ‘Very few know anything about their grandfathers,’ I said; ‘so I suppose very few fathers care to tell their children about them.’ ‘That is because there are so few concerning whom there is anything worth telling.’ ‘For my part,’ I returned, ‘I should think any fact concerning one of those who link me with the infinite past out of which I have come, invaluable. Even a fact which is not to the credit of an ancestor may be a precious discovery to the man who has in himself to fight the evil derived from it.’ ‘That, however, is a point of view rarely taken. What the ordinary man values is also rare; hence few regard their ancestry, or transmit any knowledge they may have of those who have gone before them to those that come after them.’ ‘My uncle, however, I suppose, told _me_ nothing because, unlike the many, he prized neither wealth nor rank, nor what are commonly considered great deeds.’ ‘You are not far from the truth there,’ said Mr Coningham in a significant tone. ‘Then _you_ know why he never told me anything!’ I exclaimed. ‘I do--from the best authority.’ ‘His own, you mean, I suppose.’ ‘I do.’ ‘But--but--I didn’t know you were ever--at all--intimate with my uncle,’ I said. He laughed knowingly.