I looked at her and spoke for the first time: "My name is not Anna."
"What is your name, then?—your Christian name, by which I am to call you?"
I did not relish the prospect of being called by my Christian name, for, as I have already said, I was a proud child, so I did not reply.
"Unable to answer a plain question!" observed Mrs. Marks, bespeaking the attention of Mrs. Digby with her raised forefinger; "does not know its own name!"
"My name is Miss Burns," I said indignantly.
"Does not know the difference between a surname and a Christian name!" continued Mrs. Marks, commenting on my obtuseness. "Come," she charitably added, to aid the efforts of my infant mind, "are we to call you Jane, Louisa, Mary Lucy, Alice?"
I remained silent.
"This looks like obstinacy," remarked Mrs. Marks, in a tone of discovery. "Let us reason like rational beings," she added, forgetting I was only a little animal: "if I don't know your Christian name, how am I to call you?"
"Sarah never called me by my Christian name," I bluntly replied.
"Miss Burns," solemnly inquired Mrs. Marks, "do you mean to establish a parallel? May I know who and what you take me for?"