8 NOBLE CHARACTERISTICS 



man ; but when the remains of my father were brought 

 a lono; distance to be interred in a vault he had built 

 years before for his remains and those of his family, 

 the attendance of the aged villagers, their expressions of 

 respectful remembrance, with their recapitulation of the 

 good he had done when living among them, might, I 

 think, be quoted as an exception. 



My mother's patronymic, although herself of humble 

 birth, was the same as that of a family who had been en- 

 nobled in the time of the first Charles ; and a tradition had 

 obtained currency amongst us that she was of the same 

 extraction. This was partly corroborated by a gentle- 

 man of this name who, once calling on my father, 

 appeared to me, by his conversation, to be the connect- 

 ing link between the holder of the title and his far-off and 

 more humble cousins. He bore the commission of 

 Major in one of the Midland Counties militia regiments. 

 I never took any trouble to trace our relationship with 

 this exalted family, but if a noble expression of counte- 

 nance and personal accomplishments of the highest order 

 were proofs of the alleged descent, my mother possessed 

 them in an eminent degree. " She looked like a 

 duchess ? " as a friend of mine said to me, when wish- 

 ing to explain the impression she made upon him when 

 he first beheld her. But I may be allowed to say she 

 possessed a far better and juster claim to nobility than 

 either birth, descent, or appearance could give. Ex- 

 emplary in the performance of all the duties of domestic 

 life, the faith of a true Christian dwelt in her heart, and 

 animated all her actions ; and this was daily exemplified 

 either by attention to the requirements of the poor, or by 



