“Don’t you call names, Miss,” said Aunt Dinah, who had just glided into the room.
“What was little silver-hair saying? What does she want?” he replied, laughing at the child’s indignation, and pursuing the nomenclature of Southey’s pleasant little nursery tale. “Golden-hair, I must call you, though,” he said, looking on her sun-lit head; “and not quite golden either; it is brown, and very pretty brown, too. Who called you Violet?” He was holding the tip of her pretty chin between his fingers, and looking in her large deep eyes. “Who called you Violet?”
“How should I know, Willie?” she replied, disengaging her chin with a little toss.
“Why, your poor mamma called you Violet. I told you so fifty times,” said Aunt Dinah sharply.
“You said it was my godfathers and godmothers in my baptism, grannie!” said Miss Vi, not really meaning to be pert.
“Don’t answer me, Miss—that’s of course, your catechism—we’re speaking of your poor mamma. ’Twas her mamma who called her Violet. What about it?”
“Nothing,” answered William, gently looking up at his aunt, “only it is such a pretty name;” and glancing again at the child, “it goes so well with her eyes. She is a jolly little creature.”
“She has some good features, I suppose, like every other child, and you should not try to turn her head. Nothing extraordinary. There’s vanity enough in the world, and I insist, William, you don’t try to spoil her.”
“And what do you want of me, little woman?” asked William.
“You come out and sow my lupins for me.”