The Colonel studied up my ancestors, who, it appears, were once people of sufficient consideration in the land, and finally transferred the interest to myself.  At one time he took the trouble to go down to Branton, about forty miles from Foxden, for the purpose of verifying inquiries about progenitors of mine who had originally settled in that place.  He advised me, as a son, in my reading and business; and although I often dismissed his suggestions as the whims of an old-fashioned recluse, I was always touched by the simplicity and sincere interest that prompted them.  He would mysteriously hint that something might one day occur to give tangible proof of the regard in which he held me; but as I paid little heed to such warnings, I was totally unprepared for the plan developed in the letter of which an extract is here presented:—­

“Concerning the propriety of your marrying, my dear young friend, my sister and myself have long known but one opinion; the only difficulty that has exercised us being, whom, among my divers correspondents, we could most heartily commend to your selection.  Now it is known to you that I have striven for some time past to trace the descendants of the old family of Hurribattel, who seem to have disappeared from Branton about the year ten in the present century.  The interest I have taken in the research comes from the fact that your great-great-uncle appears at one time to have been affianced to a lady of that family.  For what reason an alliance which had everything to recommend it was broken off I have sorely puzzled myself to conjecture, but linger always in the labyrinths of doubt.  Some months ago I received a catalogue from the Soggimarsh College in the Far West, to whose funds I had contributed a modest subscription.  I was thrown into an ecstasy of astonishment, when, in glancing over the names of the honorable Faculty, my attention was arrested by words to this effect:  Miss Hurribattle, Professor of Calisthenics and Female Deportment.  Of course, I wrote to her immediately, and received right cordial replies to all inquiries.  She seemed much interested in the union of the families that was formerly contemplated, and much desires to see you as the representative of your great-great-uncle.  I need only add, that, so far as may be judged by the happy vein of her correspondence, she has at present no ensnarement of the heart, and has agreed to pay me a visit at Foxden the first of August next, when, by reason of the vacation, she will be at liberty for five weeks.  Your own visit to me, so often postponed, is, as I believe, definitively fixed for the same time.  So I expect you both, and need not enlarge on the strange delight it would give me, if a family-engagement of seventy years’ standing should be closed by a marriage beneath my roof.”