“Oh, I don’t think so,” said Loveday calmly. “I think it is a very pretty name, so does everybody; but of course you don’t know, you are so young.”
“Yes, I do,” blustered Aaron; “I know as well as anybody, and I call it ugly, a silly girl’s name,” with great scorn.
“Well, of course, I shouldn’t be called by a boy’s name,” she retorted scornfully; “but if I had been a boy, and they’d christened me Aaron, why, I—I wouldn’t answer to it!”
“Wouldn’t you!” scoffed Aaron; “you’d have been only too glad to.”
“There are so many pretty names too,” went on Loveday, ignoring his last remark, and gazing at him in a musing way. “Douglas, and Gerald, and Ronald, and——”
“I’d be ’shamed to be called by any of them, silly things! Just like a girl’s!”
“Yes, but they aren’t—they’re for boys; you might just as well say my name was like a boy’s—it is rather like some.” Then, after looking at him thoughtfully for a moment, she added slowly, “I think I shall call you ‘Adolphus,’ Aaron is so ugly.”
“If you do, I won’t answer,” cried Aaron, springing to his feet, really angry now; “you ain’t going to call me out of my name. If you do, I’ll—I’ll call you Jane!”
Loveday giggled. “I don’t mind a bit!” she said gaily; “I am christened that already, and my sister is called Priscilla Mary, and you are going to be called Aaron Adolphus.”
“I’m not! I shan’t speak to you, and I won’t answer to it,” began Aaron, when suddenly his mother’s voice called to them across the sands.