It is no story: it has, as I said, neither beginning, middle, nor end.
My father was a poor clergyman with a large family.

My mother was always said to have good blood in her veins; and when she wanted to maintain her position with the people she was thrown among,--principally rich democratic manufacturers, all for liberty and the French Revolution,--she would put on a pair of ruffles, trimmed with real old English point, very much darned to be sure,--but which could not be bought new for love or money, as the art of making it was lost years before.

These ruffles showed, as she said, that her ancestors had been Somebodies, when the grandfathers of the rich folk, who now looked down upon her, had been Nobodies,--if, indeed, they had any grandfathers at all.

I don't know whether any one out of our own family ever noticed these ruffles,--but we were all taught as children to feel rather proud when my mother put them on, and to hold up our heads as became the descendants of the lady who had first possessed the lace.

Not but what my dear father often told us that pride was a great sin; we were never allowed to be proud of anything but my mother's ruffles: and she was so innocently happy when she put them on,--often, poor dear creature, to a very worn and threadbare gown,--that I still think, even after all my experience of life, they were a blessing to the family.