It is on my father's side that we go back--back, back, back.

The family antiquaries themselves lose breath.
At last they stop, panting and fanning themselves, somewhere in the ninth century, under Charlemagne.

That is where we begin." "There is no mistake about it ?" said Newman.
"I'm sure I hope not.

We have been mistaken at least for several centuries." "And you have always married into old families ?" "As a rule; though in so long a stretch of time there have been some exceptions.

Three or four Bellegardes, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, took wives out of the bourgoisie--married lawyers' daughters." "A lawyer's daughter; that's very bad, is it ?" asked Newman.
"Horrible! one of us, in the middle ages, did better: he married a beggar-maid, like King Cophetua.