meless wife, one who does not know who her mother
was"----

"She was a good woman, and beautiful, if you are at all like her."

"Or her father"----

"He was a gentleman and a scholar, if you inherited from him your mind
or your manners."

"It is good of you to say that, and I try to believe it. But it is a
serious matter; it is a dreadful thing to have no name."

"You are known by a worthy one, which was freely given you, and is
legally yours."

"I know--and I am grateful for it. After all, though, it is not my real
name; and since I have learned that it was not, it seems like a
garment--something external, accessory, and not a part of myself. It
does not mean what one's own name would signify."

"Take mine, Clara, and make it yours; I lay it at your feet. Some
honored men have borne it."

"Ah yes, and that is what makes my position the harder. Your
great-grandfather was governor of Connecticut."

"I have heard my mother say so."

"And one of your ancestors came over in the Mayflower."

"In some capacity--I have never been quite clear whether as ship's cook
or before the mast."

"Now you are insincere, John; but you cannot deceive me. You never spoke
in that way about your ancestors until you learned that I had none. I
know you are proud of them, and that the memory of the governor and the
judge and the Harvard professor and the Mayflower pilgrim makes you
strive to excel, in order to prove yourself worthy of them."

"It did until I met you, Clara. Now the one inspiration of my life is
the hope to make you mine."

"And your profession?"

"It will furnish me the means to take you out of this; you are not fit
for toil."

"And your book--your treatise that is to make you famous?"

"I have worked twice as hard on it and accomplished twice as much since
I have hoped that you might share my success."

"Oh! if I but knew the truth!" she sighed, "or could find it out! I
realize that I am absurd, that I ought to be happy. I love my
parents--my foster-parents--dearly. I owe them everything. Mother--poor,
dear mother!--could not have loved me better or cared for me more
faithfully had I been her own child. Yet--I am ashamed to say it--I
always felt that I was not like them, that there was a subtle difference
between us. They were contented in prosperity, resigned in misfortune; I
was ever restless, and filled with vague ambitions. They were good, but
dull. They loved me, but they never said so. I feel that