“Well, ma’am,” replied Gerald, pleasantly, “a name is a word: and words are my peculiar concern.” “If it matters to you, young Carrot-top, I have had many names. And under one name or another I was used to deal with every man. Now my powers fall into decay, and one month is like another month, with never any changing in it. All about me is bleached, dearie, all is colorless. There is no more employment for me: and I am an old worthless flabby white-haired creature, still palely quivering with desire for the good ever-busy days—oh, and for the nights too, dearie,—that are overpast. Eh, dearie, though you would not ever think it, once I was Æsred, a mother of the Little Gods and of much else. And I fared handsomely then, taking liveliness and color out of all things, and turning men into useful domestic animals. But now the world is old, and I am the world’s twin: and all vigorousness has gone from me, and one month is like another month, with never any changing in it.” “I am a god who bring with me all vigor and all youth,” said Gerald: for he remembered what the Sphinx had said about not despising ugliness. Gerald spoke the appointed words: and he baptized the old whining trot after the rite of the Lady of the First Water-Gap. He straightway saw the dingy towel about her shaking head transformed. This towel had now become a crown composed, a bit surprisingly, of the four suits from a pack of playing cards. There were four clubs set upright, like the strawberry leaves in a duke’s coronet, and alternated with four spades: and the band of this crown was moulded in bas-relief with eight hearts and with sixteen diamonds. In fact, everything near Gerald was changed. To Gerald’s right hand and to his left were seen neat fields and green things growing pleasantly, and the tumbled-down hovel was now a spruce new cottage. But what seemed even more interesting to Gerald was the circumstance that the wrinkled angry looking old woman had become a quite personable creature, not young and callow, but in the very prime of life: and the name of Æsred now, as she told him, and as he noted at least two other reasons for believing, was Maya of the Fair Breasts. But she said also, forthwith: “Now that I am young, and have not any chaperon in the house, it would look better for you to be getting on with your journey, because you know how people talk. Yes, and how quick they are to be talking about all widow women anyhow—” “Oh! oh!” said Gerald: “are you not, then, prepared to trust me?” “—With or without,” continued Maya, “the least provocation. As for trusting you or any other young fellow living, I never heard before of such nonsense. It is only the elderly men that any woman can depend on, just as far as she can see them, in broad daylight, a good while after they can be depended on at night.” “You are not even ready to give me all?”