"Some of it is too—too awful to repeat," she averred solemnly. "But the names they call you—and me!"
"Give me an example," Paul said encouragingly.
"Yesterday, for instance," the girl pursued, "Teddie said: 'Hazel, I have not seen old Peter for two whole hours: I wonder if he has fled the country—you must not be too surprised if he has.' Sometimes they call you Moses, and bring up the old joke: Why is it known for certain that Moses wore a wig—only, of course, they don't apply it to you."
"I would not mind all that," Paul returned, laughing.
"There is one person who calls you Pau—calls you by your rightful Christian name," the girl amended hastily, "and that is Uncle Percival; but then he spoils it by putting the adjective 'elderly' before it."
"How do you mean?" Paul asked, somewhat startled.
"Oh, it is a silly old joke," she answered scornfully. "Months ago," she continued, with an emphasis that seemed to intimate years, "before I was seventeen, I had an absurd notion that you were about middle-aged. Of course, you are no longer young," she went on, in frank self-justification; "but when I told him—Uncle Percival—that you were over thirty, he asked if you were bald, and has ever since asked after you as the elderly—er——" she hesitated, slightly embarrassed.
"Paul?" suggested that young man, and he broke into a hearty laugh. "Child," he pursued, his laughter subsiding into a merriment something mischievous, "can't you even quote my Christian name, let alone call me by it?"
"It comes to the same thing," Hazel returned severely, "and I don't at all see why one must call you by it, because one happens to be engaged to you."
"You'll have to come to it, Hazel. What do you call me at home?"