“It is my real name. I never had any other.”
“Nonsense! Your real name is Lavinia Lovell.”
“It is? All right—Lavinia Lovell, then. I don’t mind.”
“And how old are you?”
“Twelve years old.”
“You are not! You are fourteen.”
“Yes, ’m. Fourteen.”
Ladybird began to treat her aunt as one would treat a harmless lunatic who must be humored, whatever she might say.
“And why have you black eyes and straight black hair? Your father wrote, when you were a baby, that you had blue eyes and golden curls.”
“Did he write that? Why, how I have changed, haven’t I? Did you ever know a baby to change as much as that before?”