LANETON PARSONAGE - I886 - CHAPTER I. AMRIA, said little Madeline Clifford, as she looked up M from the work which she had been industriously hemming for nearly a quarter of an hour, I want very much to ask you a question. Well, my love, what is it why should you be afraid . Because, perhaps, you will think it is curious, and would rather not answer. I can but say no, if I think it wrong. Oh it is not wrong, I am sure but sonietimes you tell us not to trouble ourselves about other persons concerns and what I wish to know has nothing really to do with me, or with any of us. Mrs Clifford smiled Shall I tell you, Madeline, she said, c what you are going to ask , You cant, mamma how should you know you cannot . look at my thoughts. But I can guess them, which sometimes does as tell. What made you listen so much to what Mrs Mortimer and I were saying just now Oh, then, mamma, you do know but I did not understand when I did listen because I could not make out what Mrs Mortimer meant when she said that Lady Catharine Hyde was going to adopt Alice Lennox. What is adopting Taking her to be her own child and having her taught, and dothed, and fed, as a mother would. And will she love her inquired Madeline. I should nct care for all the eating and drinking in the world if no one loved me. I have no doubt Lady Catharine will, replied Mrs Clifford, because she is a very kind-heartcd person and Alice is most fortunate in having found such a friend, now that she has lost her mother. Lady Catharine was very fond of hlrs Lennox, was she not, Innmma asked Madeline. Yes, my dear, very and she promised, when Mrs Lennox was dying, that Alice should live with her, and be to her as her own little girl and the fact of her keeping her word so strictly in the one case, is a reason for believing she will do so in the other. g Will Alice like it said Madeline, quickly. I dont know my dear and she is too sorrowful now for any one to judge. But, mamma, will she be Alice Lennox still Mrs Clifford- could not help smiling Yes, my love why should she not But if she is Lady Catharine Hydes child, how can she be She will not be hers really, but only what is called adopted. And so her name will not alter, said Madeline. Persons names do alter though, sometimes, maillma yours was Beres- ford once. Yes that was my surname I changed it when I was married but my other name-my Christian name-I kept, and niust lceep always. Mary, you mean, said hladeline is that your best name Yes, replied Mrs Clifford Beresford is the name I had when I was born into the world, of human parents but Mary was the name given me when I was baptized, and made a child of God. The one you see I have lost, but the other I keep. And Madeline is my best name then but I dont remember that it is, when I am called. g I am afraid we are all apt to forget, replied her mother and though a great many persons have never been baptized, and yet are called by two names, that is no reason why we should think nothing of our Christian names, and of the occa- sion on which they were given to us. Madeline waited for an instant, and then kid, So Alicc will be Alice always and yet she will seem different when she lives at the Manor. She will belong to a new family, said Mrs Clifford and if Lady Catharine were to wish it very much, she might by and by take the name of Hyde besides Lennox though I do not think this is likely. Surnames can be altered Christian names cannot... --This text refers to the Paperback edition.