20 The Illumination of Joseph Keeler 9 Esq. 



themselves so naturally established and so generally received and 

 accepted. Mrs. Keeler now at once turned to her husband and 

 enquired if what the lad had been chattering about was correct; 

 and when Mr. Keeler said "certainly!" she then wished to know 

 if he had discovered who these people were, and whence they 

 had come. Joseph Keeler, now with some pardonable dignity 

 and perhaps offended ancestral family pride, said there was the 

 following, which he had written on an envelope : 



"To the Memory of Captain Joseph Keeler, born 1755 at Upton, England, 

 arrived in Boston 1775, and settled in the New Castle District 1794, a prisoner 

 of war in Oswego in 1813, and held till the end of the war, suffering much 

 for King and Country. Died 1838." 



and 



"Mary Peters, his wife, born in 1780, who coming to Canada with her 

 father, Captain Peters, bore with heroic courage the hardships of pioneer 

 days, retaining throughout her long life a joyous spirit; Who delighted her 

 children and grandchildren with tales of early dangers and adventures saying 

 always, 'Those were indeed halcyon days.' Died 1850." 



At the end of this recital of the inscription on the old head- 

 stone, Mrs. Keeler with an injured air at once remarked: 



"Now, Joseph, it is really too bad you have never told us this 

 before, when you really are of such a good family." 



"Well, my dear," he replied, blandly, "how could I, when I 

 did not know myself? And besides, my dear, you have always 

 had so much family yourself, there has not really been room for 

 much more." 



To which reply, given perhaps with some intended emphasis, 

 his elder daughter replied, 



" It is all very well, papa, to make fun of ' family ' ; but you are 

 just as proud of us and our mother's ancestors as we are our- 

 selves." 



Mr. Keeler closed the matter, when he said very quietly, look- 

 ing meaningly toward his eldest son, 



"It is very desirable, my dear, to have come of good families; 

 but there is with it a great responsibility laid upon us all of living 

 up to our privileges, and of doing things worthy of our ancestry." 



Even the mother was silent and the subject was turned to 

 some passing trifle a rather oppressive silence marking the rest 

 of the dinner, except when broken by Ernest's rhapsodies on the 

 apple orchards of Brighton. 



