“Well, we’ll name her again. Dear me—she’s rather plain! Probably she’s useful.”
“Hope so,” said Jonathan. Then, stepping back a little, in a slightly grieved tone, “But I don’t call her plain. Wait till she’s groomed up—”
“It’s that droop of her neck—sort of patient—and the way she drops one of her hips—if they are hips.”
“But we want a horse to be patient.”
“Yes. I don’t know that I care about having her look so terribly much so as this. I think I’ll call her Griselda.”
“Now, why Griselda?”
“Why, don’t you know? She was that patient creature, with the horrid husband who had to keep trying to see just how patient she was. It’s a hateful story—enough to turn any one who brooded on it into a militant suffragette.”
“But you can’t call a horse Griselda—not for common stable use, you know.”
“Call her ‘Griz’ for short. It does very well.”
Jonathan jeered a little, but in the family the name held. Our man Hiram said nothing, but I think in private he called her “Fan” or “Beauty” or “Lady,” or some such regulation stable name.