Dr.
Ferris had told her almost all she knew of him, but now that she was
in her own father's old home, among the very same sights he had known
best, he suddenly appeared to her in a vision, as one might say, and
invested himself in a cloud of attractive romance. His daughter felt a
sudden blaze of delight at this first real consciousness of her
kinship. Miss Prince had shown her brother's portrait early in the
evening, and had even taken the trouble to light a candle and hold it
high, so that Nan could see the handsome, boyish face, in which she
recognized quickly the likeness to her own. "He was only thirteen
then," said Miss Prince, "but he looks several years older. We all
thought that the artist had made a great mistake when it was painted,
but poor Jack grew to look like it. Yes, you are wonderfully like
him," and she held the light near Nan's face and studied it again as
she had just studied the picture. Nan's eyes filled with tears as she
looked up at her father's face. The other portraits in the room were
all of older people, her grandfather and grandmother and two or three
ancestors, and Miss Prince repeated proudly some anecdotes of the most
distinguished. "I suppose you never heard of them," she added sadly at
the close, but Nan made no answer; it was certainly no fault of her
own that she was ignorant of many things, and she would not confess
that during the last few years she had found out everything that was
possible about her father's people.
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