himself into the work with such zeal that soon after the cloth was
removed, from fatigue and repletion, he dropped asleep, with his
shoulder toward Lucy, but his face instinctively turned toward the
fire. Lucy crept away on tiptoe, not to disturb him.

In about an hour he bustled into the drawing-room, ordered tea, blew
up the footman because the cook had not water boiling that moment,
drank three cups, then brightened up, rubbed his hands, and with a
cheerful, benevolent manner, "Now, Lucy," cried he, "come and help me
puzzle out this tiresome genealogy."

A smile of warm assent from Lucy, and the old bachelor and the
blooming Hebe were soon seated with a mountain of parchments by their
side, and a tree spreading before them.

It was not a finite tree like an elm or an oak; no, it was a banyan
tree; covered an acre, and from its boughs little suckers dropped to
earth, and turned to little trees, and had suckers in their turn, and
"confounded the confusion."

Uncle Fountain's happiness depended, _pro tem,_ on proving that
he was a sucker from the great bough of the Fontaines of Melton; and
why? Because, this effected, he had only to go along that bough by an
established pedigree to the great trunk of the Funteyns of Salle, and
the first Funteyn of Salle was said to be (and this he hoped to prove
true) great-grandson of Robert de Fontibus, son of John de Fonte.

Now Uncle Fountain could prove himself the shoot of George his father
(a step at which so many pedigrees halt), who was the shoot of
William, who was the shoot of Richard; but here came a gap of eighty