ht iron on the anvil. But I had none--never!
I had a mother--that was all."

"And what called men thy mother?"

"Eleanor Gerard."

"Then thy name is Maude Gerard," said Oliva, sharply.

Maude's silence appeared to indicate that she declined to commit herself
either affirmatively or negatively.

"And what canst do, maid?" inquired Ursula, changing the subject to one
of more practical purport.

Perhaps the topic was too large for reply, for Maude's only response was
a nervous twisting of her fingers. Sister Oliva answered for her.

"Marry, she can pluck a chick, and roll pastry, and use a bedstaff, and
scour a floor, and sew, and the like. She hath not been idle, I warrant
you."

"Couldst cleanse out a pan an' thou wert set about it?"

"Ay," said Maude, under her breath.

"And couldst run of a message?"

"Ay."

"And couldst do as folk bid thee?"

"Ay."

But each time the child's voice grew fainter.

"Sister Oliva, I will essay the little maid, by your leave."

"And with my very good will, friend Ursula."

"Me counteth I shall make the best cook of her in all Herts. What
sayest, maid?--wilt of thy good will be a cook?"

Maude looked up, looked down, and said nothing. But nature had not made
her a cook, and the utmost Ursula Drew could do in that direction was to
spoil a good milliner.

So little Maude went with Ursula--into a very different sphere of life
from any which she could hitherto remember. The first home which she
recollected was her grandfather's cottage, with the great elms on one
side of it and the forge on the other, at which the old man had wrought
so long as his strength permitted, and had then handed over, as the
family inheritance, to his son. Since the world began for Maude, that
cottage and the forge had always stood there, and its inhabitants had
always been Grandfather, and Uncle David, and Aunt Elizabeth, and Cousin
Hawise, and Cousin Jack, and Mother.

At some unknown time in the remote past there had been a grandmother,
for Maude had heard of her; but with that exception, there had never
been anybody else, and her father was to her an utterly mythic
individual. She had never heard such a person named until Ursula Drew
inquired his calling. And then, one awful winter night, something
dreadful had happened. What it was Maude never precisely knew. She
only knew that there was a great noise in the night, and strange voices
in the cottage, and cries for mercy; and th