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The slumbering family pride and innate female ambition of the wife of
the India merchant, when she was informed by him at night, of the business
upon which her cousin had called at his counting room, was at once
awakened; and so far from mocking with Peter the high pretensions of the
poor scholar, she at once expressed herself sanguine of success.

`Why should'nt I get to be a Countess, I should like to know,' she said
warmly, `as well as other folks in America have done who have inherited
titles? I always told you we ought to hold up our heads with the highes
of the Otis's, and Quiney's, and Sears's, for I had come of a noble
family.'

`All ever I heard of your nobility was, that you have had a great aunt that
was first cousin to Sir—somebody,' said Peter, not a little vexed to find
his opinion opposed.

`Yes, but we did'nt know certain about it. I thought it was a great aunt;
but now as you say, my cousin says, it must have been my great grandfather,
who was youngest brother to this dead Lord —, Lord who was
it?'

`The Lord Harry for that matter,' retorted Peter kicking his boot off with
vehemence, for this conversation took place as the couple were preparing
for bed; if he had tried to gull me with the belief that he was heir to the
British throne, you would in some way have managed to make out your
relationship with the royal family.'

If Peter had not got angry, but had quietly argued the matter with her,
she might have entered fully into his notions of the vanity of Henry Decker's
hopes. But opposition only made her more determined to take up the
position her husband opposed, merely from the spirit of contention which
sometimes posesses loving wives.

`You are low in birth and breeding, Mr. Dalton,' she said passionately,
`and it is not to be expected you should have them high `spirations which

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elevate the minds of them as is born with some blood in their veins. I
married beneath myself, I did, when I married you! I am sure if I ever
should get to be a countess I should be ashamed to acknowledge you for
my husband in English society!'

`The devil you would,' said Peter in great rage, and elevating the boot-jack,
it was the turn of a penny that he did not let it fly across the hearth
at her head which she was adorning with papallotee for the night. But it
in time bethought the irratated husband that it would not read very well
in the morning's paper, how that `Peter Dalton Esq. East India merchant
was bound over to keep the peace, having broken his wife's head with a
boot-jack.'. And Peter let the weapon fall, as his wife, said significantly:

`I guess you'd better.'

Here open war ceased, and silent sullen hostilities continued for the rest
of the night.

The next morning while Peter was waiting for his breakfast, his wife
entered with looks of pleasure and triumph, lugging in an old escrutoire
which, after thrusting aside the plates from the breakfast-table she laid
upon it with an emphasis. Peter looked up from the newspaper he was
reading, with a surprised and enquiring glance at her, and then at the writing
desk, and not a little gratified to find that this eruption was now new
demonstration of hostilities; for since the last night peace had not been
restored. But as Peter was always willing to hail and recognize the first
signs of returning peace on his wife's visage, no sooner saw that she was
smiling, and had evidently some important and pleasing matter to communicate,
which a certain paper held in her hand was to aid, then he laid down
his paper, and said in a cheery tone:

`Well, what now wife?'

(Here be it parenthetically recorded, that long-trained, old, broken
couples, do not resort after a squabble, to a sort of treaty of peace, to mutual
explanations, tender criminations, kisses and embraces, and the ten thousand
loving endearments which signalise the `making up,' of younger married
folks, and which such seem to think is always necessary before things
will flow on with their former unruffled current. Peter and his wife had
had many a hard quarrel in their day, and five minutes after Peter would
ask for a little more sugar in his coffee, as if nothing had happened; and
in this wise way peace was restored without any foolish treaty. Let younger
couples follow their example!)

`Well, what now wife?' asked Peter cheerily.

`You said,' responded the lady with a smile, and placing her finger on
the packet of papers before her, `that we had no claim at that lordyship in
London, because that name was spelt different from my father's! Now I
knew I had in this old desk, some old letters, some of which grandmother
said had been written by grandpa's grandfather to his wife. I have never

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had time or cared to read 'em, and so they have laid in the desk till now.
But when you said if it could be proved that the family name was Bouillie,
we might stand some chance, I thought of these letters; and here all the
morning I have been looking them over, and what do you think I have
found? That the name signed to all these letters is Thomas Bouillie!
Now look for yourself, Mr. Dalton.'

Thus speaking the happy countess in futuro placed in his hands the
packet of old letters. The merchant took them with a look between hope
and surprise—for his ambition was awakened to be proved the husband of
a countess. His quick mercantile eye went over the letters with rapid inspection,
and after a few minutes silent examination of them; the signature
contents, and marks of age, he rose from his chair with a hop, and turning
a pirouette on his heel, sat down again. But he said nothing for the lapse
of some seconds, and then exclaimed emhpatically:

`Upon my soul, Mrs. Dalton, this begins to look like a pretty fair business
operation! After all, your schoolmaster cousin may not be the fool I took
him to be. This certainly looks as if it were likely to turn out a profitable
speculation!'

`Then you think Henry will get it?' exclaimed Mrs Dalton delightedly.
`Oh! wont this be a triumph! I the first cousin to an English lord!'

`And if he should chance to die without marrying, our little Isaac will
be a lord,' continued Peter, carried away by the glittering visions of greatness
with which this discovery of the proper way of Bulley filled his
mind.

`How I will crow over the aristocratic Mrs. —, and the proud-headed
Mrs. —, and the haughty Mrs. General —'

`I think we will move to England!' said Peter.

`Oh would'nt that be heavenly!' exclaimed the Countess Appollonia
clasping her hands and lifting her white blue eyes enthusiastically heavenward.
`Oh, we must ask cousin Henry to dine with us. Lord! I wonder
what will be his title?'

`Lord Aylmer, the paper said.'

`And I the Countess of Alemare? How aristocratic' We must certainly
have my cousin Henry to dine with us!'

`I shall have to loan him the money if I do,' said Peter suddenly looking
very grave, as he always did when money was directly or indirectly the
subject.

Here Mrs. Dalton's countenance also fell six degrees; for it there was
any one who loved money next to the rich India merchant it was his wife.
She was close, avaricious, and meanly parsimonious. Money was the
means by which she and her husband had got into society; it was their
title of honor; their testimony of worth in the world's eyes, to diminish it
was in the same ration to fall. It was their escutcheon; and a knight
would as soon have blotted out any one of the insigna of the exploits of his

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ancestors graven on his shield, as the pillars which supported his own name
and rank, as Peter Dalton or his wife to consent to the withdrawal, without
`undoubted security,' of a single dollar from the pillars of their own respectability.
As the nightly noble could point to his coat of arms for the
ground of his pretensions to rank; so could Peter point to his bank books
as the basis of his own!

`Mrs. Dalton's countenance fell, therefore, when Peter alluded to the appalling
condition upon which they could purchase the honor of the future
lord's company at dinner. She was silent a moment:

`Then he really has no money to go to England,' she at length asked
scornfully;—for to have no money in her eyes was to be despicable. `I
did not think of that!'

`The money will have to come out of me, if we encourage him. He
may or may not be the heir. He firmly believes he is; and I begin to be inclined
to the same opinion. He will, therefore, being so earnest, find some
other way of getting money. I will not risk it to him.'

`But if he should not be able to get it, then I might lose the chance of
proving myself relative to this noble family,' said she, pride and avarice
struggling together at her heart. `It would be a pity to be noble and not
have the world know it!'

`I should like it as well as you, wife, if I could bring it about without
risking anything. It is a difficult matter to prove descent back five generations.
He will have to take with him the strongest possible evidence; and
that will cost him something to get beforehand! He will want at least five
hundred dollars; and I positively, this matter aside, would not loan him five
dollars to keep him out of the work house.'

`Nor would I, Mr. Dalton; for a man has no business to be poor and
shame his rich relations! But then if it could be managed without our advancing
any thing! But I don't see that it can! I wouldn't ask him to dinner.
'

`No—its best to let him alone! There may be a mistake all about the
matter, and give once an invitation here, we shall never get rid of him; and
so if there is nothing in this at least, we should be the losers!'

`That's true. But I am sure there is no mistake! I always told you I
was descended from a noble English family, and I know there is no mistake.
Now, if Henry could only prove it all!'

`There's the rub wife,' said Peter emphatically.

`I hope he'll get money and go to England,' she said sighing as she
thought of the little possibility there was of her ever being saluted by the
agreeable title of Countess of Alemare. `I confess with you it would be a
risk to advance it.'

`I assure you I never loaned a dollar without sacurity and I never will;'
said Peter with mercantile firmness `It is no way of doing business I assure
you!' and thus speaking the merchant rose to go the wharf. `Let us leave

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this matter with Decker,' he said he was going out; `he'll find somebody to
loan him the money. I think he had best see these papers, at any rate;
they will help him and may drive him ahead to gain his object. I will take
these with me, and find him and give them to him. It will show that I take
an interest in his success and he may forget my refusing him the money.'

The foregoing communication has, perhaps, sufficiently illustrated the
characters of the India merchant and his wife; it exhibits avarice and niggardly
parsimony struggling with ambition of a distinction' which can only
be purchased at a slight sacrifice of their sordid love of gold. But (to moralize
for a couple of paragraphs) the same principle of action though on a
scale immeasurably greater—the same narrow motives sway half mankind
who that it may hold on the present world risks its hopes of one more
glorious! who rather than sacrifice a little here to gain much there, hold on
to their much gain here, and there sacrifice all!

On his way from his counting-room in the afternoon Peter met Henry
Decker, who had first terminated a long consultation with his friend
the lawyer, was now seeking his lodgings at the Elm Tavern.

`Oh, ah, Mr. Decker,' said the merchant blandly and taking him by the
button familiarly; I am sorry that the hard times will not let me assist you
in your views with a loan; but to show you that I am not indifferent to
your success I have at your disposal certain papers, discovered by my wife,
which I find establishes the identity of the name of Bulley with that of
Bouillie. They were original letters of Thomas Bouillie my wife's ancestor.

`I am greatly indebted to you,' said Henry Decker after glancing his eyes
over the letters and discovering that they would serve to strengthen the testimony
he was accumulating.

`If you succeed, I hope you will not forget my little assistance in this
way,' said the merchant.

`I shall not fail to remember you,' said Henry with ill-concealed irony.
`I am happy to inform you that through the assistance of a friend I shall be
able to leave for England in the first packet!'

`Ah, indeed!' exclaimed Peter with astonishment, and wondering how a
man so manifestly a poor man could borrow a dollar any where. `Who
has advanced you?' he asked curiously.

`Mr. — —,' replied the scholar quietly, yet watching the effect of
his answer upon the surprised and mortified visage of Peter.

`What, the great lawyer?'

`Yes; I went to the records of wills after leaving your counting-room
and found there the will of Thomas Bouillie my ancestor with his name appended
to it spelled after the English fashion. I then waited on Mr —
and laid before him my claim and the facts I had gathered to substantiate
it. He examined the papers and was so sanguine that I could prove my
pretensions that —'

`He advanced you the money.'

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`Most generously and freely.'

`You did not show me papers and proofs. Mr. Decker, or I might not have
refused you!' said Peter apologetically. `All I had was a newspaper account
and your own word that you was the man.'

`It is of no consequence, Mr. Dalton, said Henry, not concealing the
proud smile that mantled his fine intellectual face.

`Then you leave in the next packet?' remarked Peter sorry that he had
not let him have the money; for as he had that day thought about his claim,
the firmer was his belief that, if proper steps were taken that he might substantiate
them; and now when he found that through the kindness of a
stranger these steps were entered upon and the requisite money advanced
he felt very sure.

To make amends for it he invited Henry to come and dine with him the
next day; but the schoolmaster civilly declined, pleading an engagement to
dine with his lawyer! Peter was vexed and after again reminding him that
he had placed these important letters in his possession, he left him (Henry
Decker first taking the leave) muttering that `he didn't believe Lawyer—
would ever see his money again, and that in his opinion (Peter well
knew he lied against his conscience) he did not believe any thing would ever
come of it, and he was glad he had not risked his money like that fool
Mr. —

The papers given Henry Decker, on being examined by the lawyer,
proved of the last importance. They were he said of a character that
would be, aided by collateral evidence in possession of Mr. Decker, admitted
into any court in christendom as proof of the facts desired to be substantiated.

The third day after his first interview with his lawyer, Henry Decker had
got ready all the legal documents necessary not only to prove the identity
of Thomas Bouillie of Boston with the Thomas Bouillie the younger brother
of the Lord Aylmer; but also the proofs of his own lenial descent from
the Thomas Bouillie of Boston.

A few mornings after the wealthy merchant's last dissatisfactory interview
with the poor schoolmaster, his eye which had been nervously watching
for the announcement for the last two or three papers, lit upon the following
paragraph:

`Sailed yesterday the ship Kentucky, Rogers, for Liverpool. Passengers,
Henry Decker, Esq., and others.'

`Well he's really off at last,' he said with a long drawn sigh as if relieved
from a state of suspense. He may get it, and then I think,' he added elevating
his forehead, and trying to look like a gentleman (for he was only an
aper.) `I rather think I shall hold up my head with the best of 'em!' And
Peter Dalton took three strides across the breakfast room, and once more
read over the name of his wife's cousin. For ten minutes the newspaper
seemed to contain nothing else but `Henry Decker, Esq.'

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`Well, wife he's off,' said Peter, Mrs. Dalton at that moment coming into
the breakfast room in a flowery looking cap and with a novel in her hand;
she having read in Godey's Lady's Book that the Countess of Blesington
used sometimes so to make her appearance in a morning. Poor Mrs. Countess
Appollonie Dalton Ale-mara! her head had been completely turned
ever since her husband had told her cousin had succeeded in getting the
money to take him to England.

`Gone! sailed to England!' she almost shrieked theatrically! `Let me see
the place!' and she snatched the paper and fixed her eyes upon the printed
announcement of the fact of her cousin's departure with intense inspection!
She at length seemed to realize the truth and for a moment was
quite overcome. She let the paper drop gently to the floor, sunk as prettily
as she could, for her weight, for she was a fat body, into a chair and fanned
herself with the novel.

`Oh, oh! this—this, oh! This is too—too exquisite!'

`Why wife, what now has got possession?' exclaimed Peter alarmed—
ignorant man! not to know it was aristocratic to faint— and that all Countesses
fainted! She sighed gently, blowed a little, and then recovered herself
without having lost in the pretty experiment one tint of her fiery red
visage.

`Oh, Dalton you will be the death of me! `wife!' call me no longer by
such vulgar terms! call me `my countess,' Dalton.'

`My ninneniss!' roared Peter! `wait till your cousin gets to be a lord,
which I think he will get to own an Indiaman first. It is true he has gone
and I suppose has taken the proper papers with him! But I have been
asking Mr. —, the English Consul about their lordships that have no
heirs, (not letting him know my motive) and he has told me that the lord
chancellor is made guardian by law of the Realm of all such `hereditaments,
' as he called 'em; and that if no heir be found within a certain period
the estates escheat, as he terms it, to the crown. Now as the chancery
court representing the crown interest, is one party in this affair, in which
Henry Decker is the other, it is in my opinion, pretty clear who wins! The
court will have it all its own way, and will manage to throw such obstacles
in the way to Decker's claim, that he will have to return defeated as sure
as he is now sauguine that he will succeed. The estates of this Lord Aylmer,
as the consul told me, (for I asked him about them) cover almost a
county and are immensely valuable; the deceased lord being accounted
when he lived, one of the richest noblemen in England. Now, this is too
pretty a farm, wife, for the king to give up, when he can take it as I can
turn a copper, and send poor Henry Decker whistling for his ragged nobilbility.
Therefore,' added Peter very decidedly, `I am of opinion, your
cousin, be he lord or lacquey, will get his trouble for his pains, and you
will be about as much Countess as Betty the kitchen maid will be Mrs.
Dalton.'

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`A fine comparison, you make, sir,' roused up the offended lady; `I
would have you to know if I am not a Countess, I am not to be compared
with a cook, sir! Mrs. Dalton! yes, I dare say, if I was out of the way
she'd be liked to be Mrs. Dalton very soon, sir; for she's just low enough
for such a low bred fellow's taste as you, sir!'

Thus speaking, the offended lady stalked out of the room with a lofty
movement which was a sort of travestie of Lady Macbeth's tragic walk,
even as her short dumpy figure travesties the majestic person of that queenly
woman. Mrs. Dalton was truly wrathful; but her ire was produced as
much from grief and disappointment, at the probable downfall of her castles
in the air, as at Peter's introduction of Betty the cook, by way of illustration.
But poor Betty was a very good vent to carry off her vexation and
disappointment, and was therefore made serviceable.

From that day the subject of the lordship was not alluded to by either;
though both were on the tip toe of expectation when they should get, by
some means they knew not how, intelligence of Henry Decker's movements.

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