The young man smiles, as Mrs. Swiggs increases the velocity of her rocking, lays her right hand on the table, rests her left on her Milton, and continues to reiterate that he has got into the wrong house.

“I have no letter, Madam—­”

“I never receive people without letters-never!” she interrupts, testily.

“But you see, Madam—­”

“No I don’t.  I don’t see anything about it!” again she interposes, adjusting her spectacles, and scanning him anxiously from head to foot.  “Ah, yes (she twitches her head), I see what you are—­”

“I was going to say, if you please, Madam, that my mission may serve as a passport—­”

“I’m of a good family, you must know, young man.  You could have learned that of anybody before seeking this sort of an introduction.  Any of our first families could have told you about me.  You must go your way, young man!” And she twitches her head, and pulls closer about her lean shoulders the old red shawl.

“I (if you will permit me, Madam) am not ignorant of the very high standing of your famous family—­” Madam interposes by saying, every muscle of her frigid face unmoved the while, she is glad he knows something, “having read of them in a celebrated work by one of our more celebrated genealogists—­”

“But you should have brought a letter from the Bishop! and upon that based your claims to a favorable reception.  Then you have read of Sir Sunderland Swiggs, my ancestor?  Ah! he was such a Baron, and owned such estates in the days of Elizabeth.  But you should have brought a letter, young man.”  Mrs. Swiggs replies rapidly, alternately raising and lowering her squeaking voice, twitching her head, and grasping tighter her Milton.

“Those are his arms and crest.”  She points with her Milton to a singular hieroglyphic, in a wiry black frame, resting on the marble-painted mantelpiece.  “He was very distinguished in his time; and such an excellent Christian.”  She shakes her head and wipes the tears from her spectacles, as her face, which had before seemed carved in wormwood, slightly relaxes the hardness of its muscles.

“I remember having seen favorable mention of Sir Sunderland’s name in the book I refer to—­”

She again interposes.  The young man watches her emotions with a penetrating eye, conscious that he has touched a chord in which all the milk of kindness is not dried up.

“It’s a true copy of the family arms.  Everybody has got to having arms now-a-days. (She points to the indescribable scrawl over the mantelpiece.) It was got through Herald King, of London, who they say keeps her Majesty’s slippers and the great seal of State.  We were very exact, you see.  Yes, sir-we were very exact.  Our vulgar people, you see-I mean such as have got up by trade, and that sort of thing-went to a vast expense in sending to England a man of great learning and much aforethought, to ransack heraldry court and trace out their families.