"I daresay you will," said Mr. Wycherly, and looked hard at Jane-Anne.
"Which would you like to call me?" she asked.
"I shall call you Jane-Anne, not Allegra," Mr. Wycherly said decidedly.
"It's a pretty name," she said wistfully.
"It has rather sad associations for me," he added.
The clock upon the mantelpiece struck nine. Jane-Anne rose. "I must go, sir, now; good night, and thank you."
"Good night, my child. Get strong and rest you merry. And here is the Wordsworth; tell me when you find your poem."
She took from him a large brown volume that bristled with inserted slips of paper. He crossed the room and opened the door for her, and Jane-Anne went out with her head held high. "Just like he did for Mrs. Methuen," she reflected ecstatically.
When she had gone Mr. Wycherly went and stood at the window and looked out into the night. The sky was unclouded, of a deep, soft, soothing blue, and right in a line with his window shone one star.
"I wonder," he pondered, "what made him call her after Byron's daughter."