"Then it is no good to you!" exclaimed Elizabeth.
"I don't know that we talk of good in such a matter. I like my name
because of the reason it was given to me."
"Oh, why?" eagerly asked the little girl.
"When I was born, my papa was a very young man, and he was very fond
of reading poetry."
"Why, I thought your papa was a doctor."
"Well!"
"I thought only ladies, and poets, and idle silly people, cared for
poetry."
"They can hardly be silly if they care rightly for real poetry,
Bessie," said Miss Fosbrook; "at least, so my papa would say. It has
been one of his great helps. Well, in those days he was very fond of
a poem about a lady called Christabel, who was so good and sweet,
that when evil came near, it could not touch her so as to do her any
harm; and so he gave his little daughter her name."
"How very nice!" cried Elizabeth.
"You must not envy me, my dear, for I have been a good deal laughed
at for my pretty name, and so has Papa; and I do not think he would
have chosen anything so fanciful if he had been a little older."
"Then isn't he--what is it you call it--poetical now?"
"Indeed he is, in a good way;" and as the earnest eyes looked so
warmly at her, Christabel Fosbrook could not help making a friend of
the little maiden.
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