The Ghosts
of their
Ancestors
The Ghosts of
their Ancestors
by Weymer Jay Mills
Author of
"Caroline of Courtlandt Street"
Pictures by John Rae
New York
Fox Duffield & Co.
1906
Copyright, 1906, by
Fox Duffield & Company
Published, March, 1906
The Trow Press, N. Y.
To American Ladies & Gentlemen of prodigious Quality
To
Minerva
and
Virginia
Pictures
| "Those ancestry books are a standard joke with us" | Frontispiece |
| Facing page | |
| "How lovely she is, Juma!" | 18 |
| "My Julie saw them kissing less than an hour ago on the marine parade" | 80 |
| "The lady of the banished portrait was moving through the doorway" | 110 |
Chapter One
here was a clanging, brassy melody upon the air. For three-score years since York ofthe Scarlet Coats died, and the tune "God Save the King" floated for the last time outof tavern door and mansion window, the bells of[Pg 4]old St. Paul's had begun their ringing like this:
"Loud and full voiced at eight o'clock sends good cheer abroad," said the totteringsexton. "Softer and softer, as folks turn into bed, and faint and sweet at midnight,when our dear Lord rises with the dawn." Cheery bells full of hope—gentle chimes,as if the holy mother were dreaming of her babe. Joyous, jingling, jangling bells!Through the town their tones drifted, over the thousands of slate-colored roofs, nowinsistent on the Broadway, now lessening a little in some long winding alley, and thenfinally dying away on the bare Lispenard Meadows.