I must say that everything Uncle Doctor did on this occasion astonished me. It was the first time I had been permitted to see a visitor, and they should have prepared me for the unusual side-lights I should now catch upon the Old Daguerreotype. He held professional women in disdain, and I had heard him utter homilies against wives who tacked all their maiden or acquired names before their husband’s cognomen. Yet here he was parading Dr. Jane’s title, and almost capering before her in his exuberant desire to win favor.
They sat down around me, and I noticed how unembarrassed Jennie was by the Daguerreotype’s white tie and the clip of his lips and fearful respectability.
“A little daughter in the house,” said Uncle Doctor Theophilus, indicating with pomp the human atom in my lap, “is indeed a well-spring of pleasure.”
“We counted on her brother Trotwood Copperfield, instead of his sister Betsey Trotwood,” said Julian.
“It was a mere fancy,” I insisted, “and girls are just as good as boys any day.”
“Better,” granted Julian.
“I’m quite as glad that T’férgore is a girl.”
“But it disarranges the name,” said Julian. “His name was Fergus Dering, but I think we shall have to call her Ferguson.”
“Not at all,” I dissented indignantly.
“T’férgore!” mused Uncle Doctor Theophilus. “What kind of un-Christian appellation have you stumbled upon there?”