Of course I had expected this, and I had thought a great
deal about the answer I ought to give. In the first place, I didn't
want to have anything to do with my father's name. I never had anything
much to do with him, because he died when I was a little baby, and his
name had nothing high-toned about it, and it seemed to me to belong to
that kind of a family that you would be better satisfied with the less
you looked up its beginnings; but my mother's family was a different
thing. Nobody could know her without feeling that she had sprung from
good roots. It might have been from the stump of a tree that had been
cut down, but the roots must have been of no common kind to send up
such a shoot as she was. It was from her that I got my longings for the
romantic.
She used to tell me a good deal about her father, who must have been a
wonderful man in many ways. What she told me was not like a sketch of
his life, which I wish it had been, but mostly anecdotes of what he
said and did. So it was my mother's ancestral tree I determined to
find, and without saying whether it was on my mother's or father's side
I was searching for ancestors, I told Mr. Brandish that Dork was the
family name.
"Dork," said he; "a rather uncommon name, isn't it? Was your father
the eldest son of a family of that name?"
Now I was hoping he wouldn't say anything about my father.
"No, sir," said I; "it isn't that line that I am looking up. It is my
mother's. Her name was Dork before she was married."
"Really! Now I see," said he, "you have the paternal line all correct,
and you want to look up the line on the other side. That is very
common; it is so seldom that one knows the line of ancestors on one's
maternal side. Dork, then, was the name of your maternal grandfather."
It struck me that a maternal grandfather must be a grandmother, but I
didn't say so.
"Can you tell me," said he, "whether it was he who emigrated from this
country to America, or whether it was his father or his grandfather?"
Now I hadn't said anything about the United States, for I had learned
there was no use in wasting breath telling English people I had come
from America, so I wasn't surprised at his question, but I couldn't
answer it.
"I can't say much about that," I said, "until I have found out
something about the English branches of the family."
"Very good," said he.
