Only that it is generally conceived that in such a history as is this the writer of the tale should be able to make his points so clear by words that no further assistance should be needed, I should be tempted¹ here to insert a properly illustrated² pedigree tree of the Marrable family. The Marrable family is of very old standing³ in England, the first baronet having been created by James I., and there having been Marrables,—as is well known by all attentive⁴ readers of English history,—engaged in the Wars of the Roses, and again others very conspicuous⁵ in the religious persecutions of the children of Henry VIII. I do not know that they always behaved with consistency⁶; but they held their heads up after a fashion, and got themselves talked of, and were people of note in the country. They were cavaliers in the time of Charles I. and of Cromwell,—as became men of blood and gentlemen,—but it is not recorded of them that they sacrificed much in the cause; and when William III. became king they submitted with a good grace to the new order of things. A certain Sir Thomas Marrable was member for his county in the reigns⁷ of George I. and George II., and enjoyed a lucrative⁸ confidence with Walpole. Then there came a blustering⁹, roystering Sir Thomas, who, together with a fine man and gambler as a heir, brought the property to rather a low ebb¹⁰; so that when Sir Gregory, the grandfather of our Miss Marrable, came to the title in the early days of George III. he was not a rich man. His two sons, another Sir Gregory and a General Marrable, died long before the days of which we are writing,—Sir Gregory in 1815, and the General in 1820. That Sir Gregory was the second of the name,—the second at least as mentioned in these pages. He had been our Miss Marrable’s uncle, and the General had been her father, and the father of Mrs. Lowther,—Mary’s mother. A third Sir Gregory was

分享到：