le the younger children had almost
forgotten him.

Another person who had passed out of their life was the Jewish maiden,
Countess. She had been married the year after the arrival of the
Germans, and had gone to live at Reading: married to an old Jew whom she
only knew by name, then no unusual fate for girls of her nation. From
little Rudolph, who was just beginning to talk, she had parted most
unwillingly.

"Ah! if you would give him to me!" she had said in German to Agnes, with
a smile on her lips, yet with tears in the dark eyes. "I know it could
not be. Yet if time should come that trouble befel you, and you sought
refuge for the child, my heart and my arms would be open. Ah, you
think, what could a poor Jewess do for you? Well, maybe so. Yet you
know the fable of the mouse that gnawed the net in which the lion was
caught. It might be, some day, that even poor Countess--"

Gerhardt laid his hand on the arm of the young Jewess, and Isel, who saw
the action, trembled for the consequences of his temerity.

"Friend," he said, "I would, if so were, confide my child to you sooner
than to any other outside this house, if your word were given that he
should not be taught to deride and reject the Lord that died for him."

"You would take my word?" The dark eyes flashed fire.

"I would take it, if you would give it."

"And you know that no Court in this land would receive the witness of a
Jew! You know it?" she repeated fierily.

"I know it," he answered, rather sadly.

"Yet you would take mine?"

"God would know if you spoke truth. He is the Avenger of all that have
none other."

"He has work to do, then!" replied Countess bitterly.

"He would not be too busy, if need were, to see to my little Rudolph.
But I do not believe in the need: I think you true."

"Gerhardt, you are the strangest Christian that I ever knew! Do you
mean what you say?"

"I mean every word of it, Countess."

"Then--you shall not repent it." And she turned away.

Little Rudolph fretted for a time after his nurse and playfellow. But
as the months passed on, her image grew fainter in his memory, and now,
at seven years old, he scarcely remembered her except by name, Ermine
having spoken of her to him on several occasions.

"I wonder you talk of the girl to that child!" Isel remonstrated. "It
were better that he should forget her."

"Pardon me, Mother Isel, but I think not so. The good Lord brought her
in our way, and