He knew it was the Bona Nova in the November of 1619,—­for the first Musgrave had settled in Virginia, prior to his removal to Lichfield,—­which had the honor of transporting the forebear of this family into America.  Stapylton could have told you offhand which scions of the race had represented this or that particular county in the House of Burgesses, and even for what years; which three of them were Governors, and which of them had served as officers of the State Line in the Revolution; and, in fine, was more than satisfied to have his daughter play Penelophon to Colonel Musgrave’s debonair mature Cophetua.

In a word, Roger Stapylton had acquiesced to the transferal of his daughter’s affections with the peculiar equanimity of a properly reared American parent.  He merely stipulated that, since his business affairs prevented an indefinite stay in Lichfield, Colonel Musgrave should presently remove to New York City, where the older man held ready for him a purely ornamental and remunerative position with the Insurance Company of which Roger Stapylton was president.

But upon this point Rudolph Musgrave was obdurate.

He had voiced, and with sincerity, as you may remember, his desire to be proven upon a larger stage than Lichfield afforded.  Yet the sincerity was bred of an emotion it did not survive.  To-day, unconsciously, Rudolph Musgrave was reflecting that he was used to living in Lichfield, and would appear to disadvantage in a new surrounding, and very probably would not be half so comfortable.

Aloud he said, in firm belief that he spoke truthfully:  “I cannot conscientiously give up the Library, sir.  I realize the work may not seem important in your eyes.  Indeed, in anybody’s eyes it must seem an inadequate outcome of a man’s whole life.  But it unfortunately happens to be the only kind of work I am capable of doing.  And—­if you will pardon me, sir,—­I do not think it would be honest for me to accept this generous salary and give nothing in return.”

But here Patricia broke in.

Patricia agreed with Colonel Musgrave in every particular.  Indeed, had Colonel Musgrave proclaimed his intention of setting up in life as an assassin, Patricia would readily have asserted homicide to be the most praiseworthy of vocations.  As it was, she devoted no little volubility and emphasis and eulogy to the importance of a genealogist in the eternal scheme of things; and gave her father candidly to understand that an inability to appreciate this fact was necessarily indicative of a deplorably low order of intelligence.

Musgrave was to remember—­long afterward—­how glorious and dear this brightly-colored, mettlesome and tiny woman had seemed to him in the second display of temper he witnessed in Patricia.  It was a revelation of an additional and as yet unsuspected adorability.

Her father, though, said:  “Pat, I’ve suspected for a long time it was foolish of me to have a red-haired daughter.”  Thus he capitulated,—­and with an ineffable air of routine.