"Did you remember to wipe your feet, Luther? You are careless about that. Alice, I found a flower on my daphne; you can carry the pot up to the cemetery when you go."
"Yes, ma'am," Alice said. She took up her sewing (for Rebecca would not have idle hands about); sometimes she glanced at Luther, sitting primly in the corner of the sofa, and once caught his eye and smiled; but there were no sheep's-eyes or sweet speeches. They were Old Chester young people, and such things would have been considered improper; just as sitting by themselves would have been thought not only indecorous, but selfish.
"Oh, Alice," Luther said, suddenly, "I meant to ask you; wasn't your mother's name spelled 'Alys'?"
"Yes. Why?"
"Well, it's such an unusual name that it struck my attention when I saw it in the paper."
"What about it?" Alice asked. "Oh, dear, why didn't father spell me 'Alys' instead of 'Alice'? It's so much prettier!"
"Prettiness isn't everything; and 'Alice' is a sensible name," Rebecca said. "Don't criticise your father."
"It was an advertisement in one of the Globe's exchanges," Luther explained. "I was scissoring things, and the name caught my eye. It was information wanted. Of course it's just a coincidence, but it's queer, because—here it is," said the editor of the Globe, fumbling in his pocket. "I cut it out and meant to show it to you, but I forgot." Then he read, slowly, "Information wanted of one Alys Winton—"
"Why, but Winton was my mother's name!" cried Alice.
"—one Alys Winton, who married sometime in 1845; husband thought to be an American, name unknown. She (or a child of hers, born in 1846) is requested to communicate with Amos Hughes, Attorney at Law," etc.