Mr. Clark nodded and read the papers slowly aloud so that his sisters might hear their contents.  They recited the marriage at Uniontown, the county seat of Fayette County, Pennsylvania, on the fifteenth day of December, 1860, of Emily Leonard to Edward Smith.

“There you are,” insisted Hapgood loudly.  “That’s her; that’s the grandmother of Mary here.”

“You’re sure of that?”

“Here’s the record of the birth of Jabez, son of Edward and Emily (Leonard) Smith two years later, and the record of his marriage to my sister and the record of the birth of Mary.  After I got the marriage of this Emily straightened out the rest was easy.  We had it right in the family.”

The two sisters gazed at each other aghast.  The man was so assertive and coarse, and the child was so far from gentle that it seemed impossible that she could be of their own blood.  Still, they remembered that surroundings have greater influence than inheritance, so they held their peace, though Miss Maria stretched out her hand to Mary.  Mary stared at it but made no move to take it.

“Your records look as if they might be correct,” said Mr. Clark, an admission greeted by Hapgood with a pleased smile and a complacent rub of the hands; “but,” went on the old gentleman, “I see nothing here that would prove that this Emily Leonard was our cousin.”

“But your nephew, Stanley, wrote you that he had found that your Emily had removed to the neighborhood of Pittsburg.”

“That’s true,” acknowledged the elder man, bending his head, “but Emily Leonard isn’t an unusual name.”

“O, she’s the one all right,” insisted Hapgood bluffly.

“Further, your record doesn’t state the names of this Emily Leonard’s parents.”

Hapgood tossed back the unruly lock of hair.

“I ought to have gone back one step farther,” he conceded.  “I might have known you’d ask that.”

“Naturally.”

“I’ll send to the county clerk and get that straightened out.”

“It might be well,” advised Mr. Clark mildly.  “One other point prevents my acceptance of these documents as proof that your niece belongs to our family.  Neither the investigator whom we had working on the case nor my nephew have ever told us the date of birth of our Emily Leonard.  We can, of course, obtain that, if it is not already in my nephew’s possession, but without it we can’t be sure that our cousin was of marriageable age on December fifteenth, 1860.”

It was Mr. Clark’s turn to rub his hands together complacently as Hapgood looked more and more discomfited.

“In fact, my dear sir,” Mr. Clark continued, “you have proved nothing except that some Emily Leonard married a man named Smith on the date named.”

He tapped the papers gently with a thin forefinger and returned them to their owner, who began to bluster.

“I might have known you’d put up a kick,” he exclaimed.