It was better for your
circumstances to be inadequate for you, than you to be inadequate for
your circumstances.
Henry had amused himself one day in making a list of all their
"ancestors" to whom any sort of worldly or romantic distinction could
attach, and it ran somewhat as follows:--
(1) A great-grandmother on the father's side, fabled to live in some
sort of a farm-house chateau in Guernsey, who once a year, up till two
years ago, when she died, had sent them a hamper of apples from Channel
Island orchards. Said "chateau" believed by his children to descend to
James Mesurier, but the latter indifferent to the matter, and relatives
on the spot probably able to look after it.
(2) A great-grandfather on the mother's side given to travel, a
"rolling-stone," fond of books and talk, and rich in humanity. Surviving
still in a high-nosed old silhouette.
(3) A grand-uncle on the father's side who was one of Napoleon's guard
at St. Helena!
(4) A grandfather on the mother's side, who used to design and engrave
little wooden blocks for patterns on calico-stuffs, and whose little box
of delicate instruments, evidently made for the tracing of lines and
flowers, was one of the few family heirlooms.
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