She said, ‘If you have no objection, may we know your name? I have been asked by my father and others. I mean,’ she hesitated, ‘a name by which you would care to be called.’
‘You shall have my real name,’ he said, slightly colouring.
‘For myself to know, or to tell others?’
‘As you will, Miss Jordan. My name is Babb.’
‘Babb!’ echoed Barbara. She thought to herself that it was a name as ugly as it was unusual. At that moment Eve appeared, glowing with life, a wreath of wild roses wound about her hat.
‘Bab! Bab dear!’ she cried, referring to her sister.
Barbara turned crimson, and sprang from her seat.
‘The last cartload is going to start,’ said Eve eagerly, ‘and the men say that I am the Queen and must sit on the top; but I want half-a-crown, Bab dear, to pay my footing up the ladder to the top of the load.’
Barbara drew her sister away. ‘Eve! never call me by that ridiculous pet-name again. When we were children it did not matter. Now I do not wish it.’