Have we any pedigree worthy to be compared with that of professedly old families?
I never remember hearing of any ancestor further back than my great-grandfather.' Somerset the elder reflected and said that he believed there was a genealogical tree about the house somewhere, reaching back to a very respectable distance.

'Not that I ever took much interest in it,' he continued, without looking up from his canvas; 'but your great uncle John was a man with a taste for those subjects, and he drew up such a sheet: he made several copies on parchment, and gave one to each of his brothers and sisters.

The one he gave to my father is still in my possession, I think.' Somerset said that he should like to see it; but half-an-hour's search about the house failed to discover the document; and the Academician then remembered that it was in an iron box at his banker's.

He had used it as a wrapper for some title-deeds and other valuable writings which were deposited there for safety.

'Why do you want it ?' he inquired.
The young man confessed his whim to know if his own antiquity would bear comparison with that of another person, whose name he did not mention; whereupon his father gave him a key that would fit the said chest, if he meant to pursue the subject further.