“There are some things I ought to say to my mother alone,” declared Baron. He placed a persuasive hand on the child’s shoulder. “Afterward you can talk the matter over together.”
Mrs. Baron’s doubts were returning. “I don’t see why we should make any mysteries,” she said. She looked at the child again, and again all her defenses were laid low. “I suppose she might go up-stairs to my sitting-room, if there’s anything to say. Tell me, child,” and she bent quite graciously over the small guest, “what is your name?”
“I am Bonnie May,” was the response. The child was inordinately proud of her name, but she did not wish to be vainglorious now. She lowered her eyes with an obviously theatrical effect, assuming a nice modesty.
Mrs. Baron observed sharply, and nodded her head.
“That’s a queer name for a human being,” was her comment. She looked at her son as if she suddenly had a bad taste in her mouth. “It sounds like a doll-baby’s name.”
The child was shocked by the unfriendliness—the rudeness—of this. Mrs. Baron followed up her words with more disparagement in the way of a steady, disapproving look. Precocious children ought to be snubbed, she thought.
The good lady would not have offended one of her own age without a better reason; but so many good people do not greatly mind offending a child.
“You know,” said Bonnie May, “I really didn’t have anything to do with picking out my own name. Somebody else did it for me. And maybe they decided on it because they thought it would look good on the four-sheets.”
“On the——”
But Baron swiftly interposed.