"Their ancestors fled together from many a stricken field, and Crusaders' blood flows in their veins.

I always understood the first house was built by an old party of the name of Vertrees who couldn't get along with Dan'l Boone, and hurried away to these parts because Dan'l wanted him to give back a gun he'd lent him." Edith gave a little ejaculation of alarm.

"You mustn't repeat that story, Bibbs, even if it's true.

The Vertreeses are THE best family, and of course the very oldest here; they were an old family even before Mary Vertrees's great-great-grandfather came west and founded this settlement.

He came from Lynn, Massachusetts, and they have relatives there YET--some of the best people in Lynn!" "No!" exclaimed Bibbs, incredulously.
"And there are other old families like the Vertreeses," she went on, not heeding him; "the Lamhorns and the Kittersbys and the J.Palmerston Smiths--" "Strange names to me," he interrupted.