“No,” she said, “it is Zella. Rather a silly name, I am afraid. It came from a fancy of father’s that my eyes were like a gazelle’s.”
“And so they are!” I exclaimed; “that is the look I have seen in them—some dogs have it too! I don’t think it is at all a silly name. Will you let me call you by it sometimes?” for of course under the circumstances there had been no question of anything but “Isabel” and “Regina” between us from the first.
“Of course you may, if you like,” she said. “But—” and she hesitated.
“But what?” I asked.
Isabel smiled.
“You mustn’t be vexed with me,” she replied, “if I can’t promise to call you ‘Reggie,’ as your brother does. I don’t like it—and Regina is such a pretty name and uncommon too.”
“Mother never calls me anything else,” I said, “but I am afraid I am half a boy. You must civilise me—mother will be eternally grateful to you if you do.”
“I don’t think you need civilising,” said Isabel; “but perhaps in our different ways we may do each other good. I do hope your people will let you come to stay with us when we go home.”
“I should love it of all things,” I said. “I have scarcely ever paid any visits, and I have seen very little of England except quite near our own home. Is it very pretty where you live?”
“Not so much pretty as picturesque,” Isabel replied. “To begin with, it is very, very out of the way; we are six miles from a railway station of any kind, and sixteen from an important one. But papa’s people have lived there for so long, that it doesn’t seem out of the way to us. It is a place that changes very little.”