"Pansy! Of all names! I s'pose she is as big as an elephant, ain't she?"
"She is rather large for her age," acknowledged the surprised minister, hardly knowing how to receive these candid remarks of his youthful hostess.
"All the Pansies I ever knew were," sighed Peace. "I don't see why people will name their biggest children Pansy."
"But how is one to tell how fat a child will be when it grows up?" argued the puzzled man.
"It's never safe to name a baby Pansy. It's sure to be a whale. Besides, Pansy isn't a pretty name for a person. It is all right for a flower, but for a real live thing—well, ministers do have awfully queer notions about pretty names, anyway. Are all your children girls?"
"No, only four. Keturah, Caroline, Penelope and Pansy."
"Mercy! What outrageous names! It is very plain that you didn't go to the Bible for your children, but you couldn't have done any worse if you had."
"Why, child, what do you mean?" gasped the thoroughly uncomfortable pastor, mentally deciding that this was the rudest specimen of humanity that he had ever met in his life.
"Well, you see after my sister Gail was born and named after Mamma, Grandpa came to stay with us and while he lived he took the job of naming the rest of us,—all but Allee. He died before she came. But he hunted out words from the Bible to call us, and they are all misfits but Hope."
"Hope is a very pretty name," murmured the minister, somewhat hesitatingly.