when it is his own
even the veriest democrat is conscious at least of the picturesqueness,
the superiority, as a mode of distinguishing one man from another, of
anything that can in the remotest sense be called a historical name.

When Pippo was out of sight Elinor turned from the window with a sigh,
and came back to the dark chamber of her own life, full at this moment
of all the gathered blackness of the past and of the future. She put her
hands over her eyes, and sank down upon a seat, as if to shut out from
herself all that was before her. But shut it out as she might, there it
was--the horrible court with the judgment-seat, the rows of faces bent
upon her, the silence through which her own voice must rise alone,
saying--what? What was it she was called there to say? Oh, how little
they knew who suggested that her mother should have been called instead
of her, with all her minute old-fashioned calculations and exact memory,
who even now, when all was over, would probably convict Elinor of a
mistake! Even at that penalty what would not she give to have it over,
the thing said, the event done with, whatever it might bring after it!
And it could now be only a very short time till the moment of the
ordeal would come, when she should stand up in the face of her country,
before the solemn judge on his bench, before all the gaping, wondering
people--before, oh! thought most dreadful of all, which we would not,
could not, contemplate--before one who knew everything, and say---- She
picked herself up trembling as it were, and uncovered her eyes, and
protested to herself that she would say nothing that was not true.
Nothing that was not true! She would tell her story--so well remembered,
so often conned; that story that had been put into her lips twenty years
ago which she had repeated then confused, not knowing how it was that
what was a simple fact should nevertheless not be true. Alas! she knew
that very well now, and yet would have to repeat it before God and the
world. But thinking would make it no better--thinking could only make it
worse. She sprang up again, and began to occupy herself with something
she had to do: the less it was thought over the better: for now the
trial had begun, and her ordeal would soon be done too. If only the boy
could be occupied, kept away--if only she could be left alone to do what
she had to do! That he should be there was the last aggravation of which
her fate was capable; there in idlene