Alte alone knew. Alte wasn't her real name, by the way, and Alte was the
last person in the world to know what it was. She was the Belcovitches'
first successful child; the others all died before she was born. Driven
frantic by a fate crueller than barrenness, the Belcovitches consulted
an old Polish Rabbi, who told them they displayed too much fond
solicitude for their children, provoking Heaven thereby; in future, they
were to let no one but themselves know their next child's name, and
never to whisper it till the child was safely married. In such wise,
Heaven would not be incessantly reminded of the existence of their dear
one, and would not go out of its way to castigate them. The ruse
succeeded, and Alte was anxiously waiting to change both her names under
the _Chuppah_, and to gratify her life-long curiosity on the subject.
Meantime, her mother had been calling her "Alte," or "old 'un," which
sounded endearing to the child, but grated on the woman arriving ever
nearer to the years of discretion. Occasionally, Mrs. Belcovitch
succumbed to the prevailing tendency, and called her "Fanny," just as
she sometimes thought of herself as Mrs. Belcovitch, though her name
was Kosminski. When Alte first went to school in London, the Head
Mistress said, "What's your name?" The little "old 'un" had not
sufficient English to understand the question, but she remembered that
the Head Mistress had made the same sounds to the preceding applicant,
and, where some little girls would have put their pinafores to their
eyes and cried, Fanny showed herself full of resource. As the last
little girl, though patently awe-struck, had come off with flying
colors, merely by whimpering "Fanny Belcovitch," Alte imitated these
sounds as well as she was able.

"Fanny Belcovitch, did you say?" said the Head Mistress, pausing with
arrested pen.