ou look upon this thing. I will
speak out boldly, though you know I dislike to give you pain. But tell
me this: Do you think yourself a fit wife for my son?"

Christine raised her head and answered with a very noble look of pride:

"I do."

Her companion seemed to be surprised, and a faint shade of disapproval
crossed her face.

"I know it," said Christine. "I know he did not say too much when he
spoke those blessed words to you and said I was stainless. God saw my
heart through everything and He knows that it is so, but the world
thinks otherwise. The world, and his own family, perhaps, would think
your son lowered and dishonored by marrying me, and I never could
consent to go among the people who could think it; so, if he married
me, he would not only have to bear this odium, but to give up too,
forever, his home and relatives, and friends and country, and it was for
these reasons I refused to marry him--not for an instant because I felt
myself unworthy."

It was plain that these earnest words had moved her companion deeply,
and that she felt a desire to hear more.

"Tell me the whole story," she said. "This you have promised to do, and
you have made me eager to hear it. Remember how little I have been told.
I do not even know your name."

With the full gaze of her sorrowful eyes upon the elder woman's face,
she said quietly:

"My name is Christine."

There was an infinite proud calm in her voice, and in the same tone she
went on:

"I bore throughout my childhood and my young girl days another name that
seems in no sense to belong to me now. That child and girl, Christine
Verrone, is not in any way myself. It seems only a sweet memory of a
dear young creature, nearer akin to the birds, and the winds, and the
flowers than to me. I cannot feel I ought to take her name, and pass
myself for her. For three years I bore another name, but it is one my
very lips refuse to utter now, and I never had a right to it. The one
name that I feel is really mine is just Christine--the name that was
given to the little baby, on whose forehead the sign of the cross was
made soon after she came into this sad world, to taste of its most awful
sorrow and to grow into the woman that I am. I have always loved it,
because, in sound, it seemed to bring me near to Christ--the dear Christ
who has never forsaken me since I have borne His sign, who has been
through all my loving, dear Brother, knowing and understanding all and
grievin