Page:Lawrence Lynch--The last stroke.djvu/172

160 now that the home supply of English bred Paisley stock is run out."

There was more to this screed below the line which marked the lower end of the clipping, but it contained no further reference to the Paisleys, merely dilating in a would-be humorous manner upon the degenerating influence of the foreign legacy upon the American citizen. But the advertisement upon the other side had been cut out in full, and exactly at the beginning and end.

It was puzzling and disappointing in the extreme. Ferrars had really looked upon this cut newspaper as his strongest card when he should have found the missing fragment, and now! He thought and wondered, and re-read letter and clipping again and again, but to no good purpose, and at last he locked away the puzzling documents and went out to make a morning call upon Mrs. Jamieson.

That evening he talked first with Robert Brierly and then with the family lawyer, and to both he put the same direct questions, "What could they tell him of the early history of the Brierlys? of Mrs. Brierly's family and ancestors? Had they any relatives in England or Scotland, say? Were there any old family papers in the possession of either?"

Of Robert Brierly he also asked if, to his knowledge,