It may be a famous son, a renowned ancestor, a faded heirloom, even a musical daughter.

The pride of the Turold family rested on the belief that they were of noble blood--the lineal inheritors of a great English title which had fallen into abeyance hundreds of years before.
Robert Turold had not been content to boast of his nobility and die a commoner like his father and grandfather before him.

His intense pride demanded more than that.

As a boy he had pored over the crabbed parchments in the family deed-box which indicated but did not record the family descent, and he had vowed to devote his life to prove the descent and restore the ancient title of Turrald of Missenden to the Turolds of which he was the head.
There was not much to go upon when he commenced the labour of thirty years--merely a few old documents, a family tradition, and the similarity of name.

And the Turolds were poor.