All
beautiful to us two, and beloved!
VI
'But where was this little boy's mother all this time?' you naturally
ask; 'where was his father? In a word, who was he? and what were his
surroundings?'
I will answer these queries in as brief a fashion as possible.
My father, Philip Aylwin, belonged to a branch of an ancient family
which had been satirically named by another branch of the same family
'The Proud Aylwins.'
It is a singular thing that it was the proud Aylwins who had a
considerable strain of Gypsy blood in their veins. My great-grandfather
had married Fenella Stanley, the famous Gypsy beauty, about whom so
much was written in the newspapers and magazines of that period. She
had previously when a girl of sixteen married a Lovell who died and
left a child. Fenella's portrait in the character of the Sibyl of
Snowdon was painted by the great portrait painter of that time.
This picture still hangs in the portrait gallery of Raxton Hall.
As a child it had an immense attraction for me, and no wonder, for it
was original to actual eccentricity.
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