g snow: and I and some others--whom, I know not--wander about in
it--for centuries, as it appears to me. Then comes a blank, and then--
you."

"You remember better than I should have expected as to some things:
others worse. Can you recollect no name save `Mother Isel'?"

"I can, but I don't know whose they are. I can hear somebody call from
the upper chamber--`Gerard, is that you?' and the pleasant-faced man
says, `Tell Ermine' something. That is what made me ask you, Mother. I
met a man to-day in Cheapside who looked hard at me, and who made me
think both of that pleasant-faced man, and also of the stern man; and as
I had to wait for a cart to pass, another man and woman came and spoke
to him, and he said to the woman, `Well, when are you coming to see
Ermine?' The face, and his curious, puzzled look at me, and the name,
carried me back all at once to that house and the people there. He
looked as if he thought he ought to know me, and could not tell exactly
who I was. And just as I came away, I fancied I heard another word or
two, spoken low as if not for me or somebody to hear--something
about--`like him and Agnes too.' I wonder if I ever knew any one called
Agnes? I have a faint impression that I did. Can you tell me, Mother?"

"I will tell thee, Ralph. But answer me first. Wert thou always called
Ralph?"

"I cannot tell, Mother," replied the youth, with an interested look. "I
fancy, somehow, that I once used to be called something not that
exactly, and yet very like it. I have tried to recover it, and cannot.
Was it some pet name used by somebody?"

"No. It was your own name--which Ralph is not."

"O Mother! what was it?"

"Wait a moment. Did you ever hear of any one called--Countess?"

She brought out the second name with hesitation, as if she spoke it
unwillingly. The youth shook his head.

"Let that pass."

"But who was it, Mother?"

"Never mind who it was. No relative of yours--Rudolph."

"Rudolph!" The young man sprang to his feet. "That was my name! I
know it was, but I never could get hold of it. I shall not forget it
again."

"Do not forget it again. But let it be for ourselves only. To the
world outside you are still `Ralph.' It is wiser."

"Very well, Mother."

This youth had been well trained, and was far more obedient to his
adopted mother than most sons at that time were to their real parents.
With the Saxons a mother had always been under the control of an