Yesterday afternoon Lady Sybil and I were alone in the bower, and she had the baby in her arms. The little creature is to be made a Christian on Sunday. I asked her what name it was to have. I expected her to say either Marie, which is the Lady Queen's name, or Eustacie, the name of Guy's mother. But she said neither. She answered, "Agnes." And she spoke in that hushed, reverent voice, in which one instinctively utters the names of the beloved dead. I could not think whose it could be. The name has never been in our House, to my knowledge; and I was not aware of it in Lady Sybil's line.
"Dost thou not know whose name it is, Helena?" asked Lady Sybil. I fancy she answered my look.
"No," said I.
"My dear lord has been very good to me," she said. "He made not the least objection. It was my mother's name, Helena."
"Oh!" said I, enlightened. "Lady Sybil, do tell me, can you remember the Lady Queen your mother? How old were you when she died?"
She did not answer me for an instant. When I looked up, I saw tears dropping slowly on the infant's robes.
"When she—died!" There was a moment's pause. "Ay, there are more graves than men dig in the churchyard! When she—died,—Helena, I was six years old."
"Then you can remember her?" I said eagerly. "Oh, I wish I could remember mine."
"Ay, memory may be intense bliss," she answered; "or it may be terrible torture. I can remember a fair face bent down over mine, soft, brooding arms folded round me, loving kisses from gentle lips. And then——O Helena, did my lord tell thee she was dead? It was kind of him; for he knows."[#]
[#] I trust it will not be imagined from this that I think lightly of "white lies." Romanists, as a rule, are very lenient towards them.