I can only be frank where my own are inquired into.
But to resume--he has resigned the library in my favour, and never enters without leave had and obtained; and so I have taken the liberty to make it the place of deposit for some of my own goods and chattels, as you may see by looking round you." "I beg pardon, Miss Vernon, but I really see nothing around these walls which I can distinguish as likely to claim you as mistress." "That is, I suppose, because you neither see a shepherd or shepherdess wrought in worsted, and handsomely framed in black ebony, or a stuffed parrot,--or a breeding-cage, full of canary birds,--or a housewife-case, broidered with tarnished silver,--or a toilet-table with a nest of japanned boxes, with as many angles as Christmas minced-pies,--or a broken-backed spinet,--or a lute with three strings,--or rock-work,--or shell-work,--or needle-work, or work of any kind,--or a lap-dog with a litter of blind puppies--None of these treasures do I possess," she continued, after a pause, in order to recover the breath she had lost in enumerating them--"But there stands the sword of my ancestor Sir Richard Vernon, slain at Shrewsbury, and sorely slandered by a sad fellow called Will Shakspeare, whose Lancastrian partialities, and a certain knack at embodying them, has turned history upside down, or rather inside out;--and by that redoubted weapon hangs the mail of the still older Vernon, squire to the Black Prince, whose fate is the reverse of his descendant's, since he is more indebted to the bard who took the trouble to celebrate him, for good-will than for talents,-- Amiddes the route you may discern one Brave knight, with pipes on shield, ycleped Vernon Like a borne fiend along the plain he thundered, Prest to be carving throtes, while others plundered.
"Then there is a model of a new martingale, which I invented myself--a great improvement on the Duke of Newcastle's; and there are the hood and bells of my falcon Cheviot, who spitted himself on a heron's bill at Horsely-moss--poor Cheviot, there is not a bird on the perches below, but are kites and riflers compared to him; and there is my own light fowling-piece, with an improved firelock; with twenty other treasures, each more valuable than another--And there, that speaks for itself." She pointed to the carved oak frame of a full-length portrait by Vandyke, on which were inscribed, in Gothic letters, the words _Vernon semper viret._ I looked at her for explanation.

"Do you not know," said she, with some surprise, "our motto--the Vernon motto, where, Like the solemn vice iniquity, We moralise two meanings in one word And do you not know our cognisance, the pipes ?" pointing to the armorial bearings sculptured on the oaken scutcheon, around which the legend was displayed.
"Pipes!--they look more like penny-whistles--But, pray, do not be angry with my ignorance," I continued, observing the colour mount to her cheeks, "I can mean no affront to your armorial bearings, for I do not even know my own." "You an Osbaldistone, and confess so much!" she exclaimed.

"Why, Percie, Thornie, John, Dickon--Wilfred himself, might be your instructor.

Even ignorance itself is a plummet over you." "With shame I confess it, my dear Miss Vernon, the mysteries couched under the grim hieroglyphics of heraldry are to me as unintelligible as those of the pyramids of Egypt." "What! is it possible ?--Why, even my uncle reads Gwillym sometimes of a winter night--Not know the figures of heraldry!--of what could your father be thinking ?" "Of the figures of arithmetic," I answered; "the most insignificant unit of which he holds more highly than all the blazonry of chivalry.

But, though I am ignorant to this inexpressible degree, I have knowledge and taste enough to admire that splendid picture, in which I think I can discover a family likeness to you.