s that word, then, Mother?"

"Rudolph, canst thou bear to hear it? The word is--`heretic'."

"But those are wicked people, who are called heretics!"

"I think it depends on who uses the word."

Rudolph sat an instant in blank silence.

"Then what did my father believe that was so wrong?"

"He believed what I have taught you."

"Then were they wicked, and not he?"

"Judge for thyself. There were about thirty of thy father's countrymen,
who came over to this country to preach the pure Word of God: and those
who called them heretics took them, and branded them, and turned them
out into the snow to die. Would our Lord have done that?"

"Never! Did they die?"

"Every one, except the child I saved."

"And that was I, Mother?"

"That was thou."

"So I am not an Englishman!" said Rudolph, almost regretfully.

"No. Thou seest now why I taught thee German. It is thine own tongue."

"Mother, this story is terrible. I shall feel the world a worse place
to my life's end, after hearing it. But suffer me to ask--who are you?
We are so unlike, that sometimes I have fancied we might not be related
at all."

"We are not related at all."

"But you are German?"

"No."

"You are English! I always imagined you a foreigner."

"No--I am not English."

"Italian?--Spanish?"

She shook her head, and turned away her face.

"I never cared for the scorn of these other creatures," she said in a
low troubled voice. "I could give them back scorn for scorn. But it
will be hard to be scorned by the child whom I saved from death."

"Mother! I scorn you? Why, the thing could not be. You are all the
world to me."

"It will not be so always, my son. Howbeit, thou shalt hear the truth.
Rudolph, I am a Jewess. My old name is Countess, the daughter of
Benefei of Oxford."

"Mother," said Rudolph softly, "you are what our Lady was. If I could
scorn you, it would not be honouring her."

"True enough, boy: but thou wilt not find the world say so."

"If the world speak ill of you, Mother, I will have none of it! Now
please tell me about others. Who was Mother Isel?"

"A very dear and true friend of thy parents."

"And Ermine?"

"Thy father's sister--one of the best and sweetest maidens that God ever
made."

"Is it my father that I remember, with the grave blue eyes--the man who
read in the book?"

"I have no doubt of it. It is odd--" and a smile flitted over
Countess's lips--"that all thou canst recoll