"'Lancelot!'" mother repeated scornfully. "If they had to name him for poetry why didn't they call him Lothario and be done with it!"
The circle again stiffened, as if they had a spine in common.
"Certainly it isn't becoming in you to train this child up with a disrespectful feeling toward Uncle Lancelot," some one reprimanded quickly, "since she gives every evidence of being very much like him in appearance."
"My child like that notorious Lancelot Christie!" mother repeated, then burst into tears. "Why she's a Moore, I'll have you understand—from here—down to here!"
She encompassed the space between the crown of my throbbing head and the soles of my kicking feet, but neither the tears nor the measurements melted Cousin Pollie.
"A Moore! Bah! Why, you needn't expect that she'll turn out anything like you. A Lydia Languish mother always brings forth a caryatid!"
"A what?" mother demanded frenziedly, then remembering that Cousin Pollie had just returned from Europe with guide-books full of strange but not necessarily insulting words, she backed down into her former assertion. "She's a Moore! She's the image of my revered father."
"There's something in that, Pollie," admitted Aunt Louella, who was the weak-kneed one of the sisters. "Look at the poetic little brow and expression of spiritual intelligence!"
"But what a combination!" Aunt Hannah pointed out. "As sure as you're a living woman this mouth and chin are like Uncle Lancelot!—Think of it—Jacob Moore and Lancelot Christie living together in the same skin!"
"Why, they'll tear the child limb from limb!"