th her eyes fixed intently upon his face.

"My name," she said, "is Ethel Lake."

"Ethel Lake," he repeated after her. The words sounded somehow familiar
to him; surely he had heard that name before. Were not the words
associated with something in his past that had been unpleasant? A
curious sinking sensation came over him as he heard them.

His companion watched him intently while he repeated the words over to
himself several times, as if to make sure he had got them right. There
was a moment's hesitation as he slowly went over them once again. Then
he turned to her, laughing.

"I like your name, Ethel Lake," he said. "It's a nice
name--Miss--Miss----" Again he hesitated, while a little warning tremor
ran through his mind, and he wondered for an instant why he said "Miss."
But it passed as suddenly as it had come, and he finished the
sentence--"Miss Lake, I shall call you." He stared into her eyes as he
said it.

"Then you don't remember me at all?" she cried, with a sigh of intense
relief. "You've quite forgotten?"

"I never saw you before, did I? How can I remember you? I don't remember
any of the things I've forgotten. Are you one of them?"

For reply she caught him to her breast and kissed him. "You precious
little boy!" she said. "I'm so glad, oh, so glad!"

"But do you remember _me_?" he asked, sorely puzzled. "Who am I? Haven't
I been born yet, or something funny like that?"

"If you don't remember _me_," said the other, her face happy with smiles
that had evidently come only just in time to prevent tears, "there's
not much good telling you who _you_ are. But your name, if you really
want to know, is----" She hesitated a moment.

"Be quick, Eth--Miss Lake, or you'll forget it again."

She laughed rather bitterly. "Oh, I never forget. I can't!" she said. "I
wish I could. Your name is James Stone, and Jimbo is 'short' for James.
Now you know."

She might just as well have said Bill Sykes for all the boy knew or
remembered.

"What a silly name!" he laughed. "But it can't be my real name, or I
should know it. I never heard it before." After a moment he added, "Am I
an old man? I feel just like one. I suppose I'm grown up--grown up so
fast that I've forgotten what came before----"

"You're not grown up, dear, at least, not exactly----" She glanced down
at his alpaca knickerbockers and brown stockings; and as he followed her
eyes and saw the dirty buttoned-boots there came into his mind some dim
memo