“What was that—Marian?”
His little wife had answered:
“Mary!—Ann!” making each a staccato note, and adding, “Will I never speak the English?”
She spoke the language perfectly.
III
THE CALYXLIKE BONNET
Now it was into this lily calyx that the unregenerate Doctor John Rem looked one day, with precisely the emotions which the mother of Mary Ann had foretold—though, of course, he had not time to formulate them with such beauty. It was only a moment. And he was bewildered.
And the wonder of it was that he had found her with the wife of his friend Jarn, whom they both called Bell-Bell, for no better reason than that her name was Belle, and that she was the wisest and brightest and best of young wives and comrades—even though that does sound like a certain hymn.
“In heaven’s name, Bell-Bell, what does it mean?”
Mrs. Jarn became mysterious.
“Little boys must be seen, not heard.”