How are you, a Jaquess, related so closely to the Caseys and the Fergusons? Have you not been told since childhood days, that the ties of kinship were ever present in your midst? And what a Gordian knot of mysteries they seemed to you! Then, there were those Davis threads — Endicott, Cooper, Welborn, Schrader, Ashworth, Bozeman, Waters, Castle, Hovey, Cleveland, Finch and scores of others, until you longed for the spirit of some family Alexander to untangle that knot of intricacies. But alas! The days of romantic tradition had passed, and there seemed no oracle to point the way.