All the portraits that hang on the walls of the living room are, I realize, of my mother's family: miniatures of her great-aunts in Victorian bustles and elaborate feathered hats; a gilt-framed oil of her great-great-great-uncle as a boy in pastoral England, wearing a gold riding coat over white jodhpurs and sitting astride a white steed, a King Charles spaniel yapping at them from the foreground of the canvas.

They burned the old gun that used to stand in the dark corner up in the garret, close to the stuffed fox that always grinned so fiercely. Perhaps the reason why he seemed in such a ghastly rage was that he did not come by his death fairly. And why else was he put away up there out of sight?—and so magnificent a brush as he had too.

Except, um... there's this election next week, so after that, it might not be him anymore. It might be what's-his-name, uh... Mumbly Joe, uh... I saw him on TV the other... uh... Bob Dole!

, II.17: It is a language (as are many others round about me) like to that of Poitou, Xaintonge, Angoulesme, Limosin, and Auvergne, squattering, dragling, and filthie.