“Do you mean Knight Errant?” asked Constance, looking up to smile at the eager little girl.
“Knight Errant? Knight Errant?” repeated Jean, doubtfully. “No, somehow that doesn’t fit him. I couldn’t call him that, it’s too long.”
“Call whom, Jean?” Constance began to wonder what was simmering in this little sister’s head.
“Mr. Stuyvesant. He calls me ‘Little Sister,’ and I want a name for him.”
“Do you think mother would approve of your calling him by a nickname?”
“’Tisn’t going to be a nickname; it’s going to be a love name for him, just like his for me is,” was Jean’s curious distinction.
“Oh!” The tone did not imply deep conviction.
“Now, Connie, you don’t understand at all. You think I’m going to be—be—, well, you don’t think I’m respectful, but I am. I don’t know anyone that I feel more respectfuller to than Mr. Stuyvesant. He’s just lovely. Only just plain Mr. Stuyvesant keeps him such a long way off, and he mustn’t be. Mother has adopted him, you know, ’cause we all agreed to lend part of her to him. So I must have a homey name for him. What were the other names they gave those old knights?”
“They were often called ‘champions of their fair ladies,’” answered Constance, slipping her arm about Jean and drawing her close to her side.
“That’s it! That just suits him, doesn’t it? He was my champion the day Jabe Raulsbury turned old Baltie out to die in the road, and he has been a heap of times since when I’ve got into scrapes. So that’s what I’m going to call him. He is down on the piazza talking with mother about the new fence, and I’m going right straight down to ask him if I may call him Champion,” ended Jean, delighted with her new acquisition and bounding away.