"Her profile entitles her to a classical name, but the appropriateness of its significance must be observed. As 'Hecuba' she would feel in duty bound to add nineteen to your herd."
"No, indeed. That is a mouthful of stuttering ugliness."
"'Persephone' rolls softly, like the long swell of a foamless wave settling to rest—but then you could expect no pearly horned progeny, and she might spend her days lowing for her mother. The prettiest short names are already in the herd books. 'Antiope?' She would not take good care of her calves. You don't like mythology because it is pagan, and when I pleaded with you that your cat should be 'Hebe' you turned up your little nose and labelled her 'Delilah.' Such a consistent saint! You prefer Old Testament wickedness to heathen purity. Suppose you compromise on 'Doucette,' and then you can feel sure she will neither kick nor gore."
"If that is the best you can suggest, I shall just suit myself and call her Patricia of Nutwood."
"Madrecita, you can not. It is pre-empted. The mother of our herd was imported from St. Helier by my grandfather, when she was only eight months old, and he registered her in his own herd book, 'Patricia of Nutwood.' Mr. Boynton showed me an old leather-bound copy last winter, when I signed several transfers."
"Then the next best for my brown satin beauty is 'Noela,' in honor of Mr. Herriott."
"I am racked by jealousy that you should overlook the liquid brevity of 'Eglahtina' or 'Eglahkentana.' Let us sit here on the steps, where we can enjoy our leafy canopy. Could anything be more beautiful?"
She threw back her head and looked up. In front of the steps two lines of very old elm trees marked the limits of a walk leading through the "back yard" to the vegetable garden. On each row, planted opposite, white wistaria had been trained so carefully that as the lower lateral elm branches were cut away to keep the arch intact, the vines climbed higher until now, the top boughs of the trees having met, all along the walls and across the pale-green dome of elm leaves swung long, drooping spikes of snowy bloom, amid the olive-tinted wistaria foliage.
"I never saw anything so lovely in Italy," said Eliza, stroking Delilah, and straightening the blue bow on the cat's neck.
"We came too late last spring for the bloom, and we have not seen this living ceiling for so many years. When I was at college I used to shut my eyes and recall it just as we left it. My little 'sundown supper' table on the square of matting yonder, you sitting on the bottom step crocheting mats, grandmother, so tall and thin, walking up and down the side flower garden over there, gathering rose leaves for the big blue china rose jar in the drawing-room, old Hector following her like a lean shadow, and King Herod spreading his tail till I threw him bread crumbs. How often I longed for one of my 'sundown' suppers—my bowl of hominy and cream, my cup of milk, the tea cakes and ginger pone, and blackberry jam. The smell of cloves and cinnamon, and the taste thereof!"