“I think,” said Mrs. Frederick, “that if a person makes up her mind not to have colds she will not have colds.”
So that was the trouble. It was all Valancy’s own fault.
But on this particular morning Valancy’s unbearable grievance was that she was called Doss. She had endured it for twenty-nine years, and all at once she felt she could not endure it any longer. Her full name was Valancy Jane. Valancy Jane was rather terrible, but she liked Valancy, with its odd, out-land tang. It was always a wonder to Valancy that the Stirlings had allowed her to be so christened. She had been told that her maternal grandfather, old Amos Wansbarra, had chosen the name for her. Her father had tacked on the Jane by way of civilising it, and the whole connection got out of the difficulty by nicknaming her Doss. She never got Valancy from any one but outsiders.
“Mother,” she said timidly, “would you mind calling me Valancy after this? Doss seems so—so—I don’t like it.”
Mrs. Frederick looked at her daughter in astonishment. She wore glasses with enormously strong lenses that gave her eyes a peculiarly disagreeable appearance.
“What is the matter with Doss?”
“It—seems so childish,” faltered Valancy.
“Oh!” Mrs. Frederick had been a Wansbarra and the Wansbarra smile was not an asset. “I see. Well, it should suit you then. You are childish enough in all conscience, my dear child.”
“I am twenty-nine,” said the dear child desperately.
“I wouldn’t proclaim it from the house-tops if I were you, dear,” said Mrs. Frederick. “Twenty-nine! I had been married nine years when I was twenty-nine.”