"And call her by another name?" asked the woman.
"I do not think I can do that."
"It's a terrible mouthful," observed Mrs. Verstage.
"I daresay that in practice you will be able to condense it. As for that boy of yours, ma'am, I should like a word with him, by himself."
"So, the creetur must bide Mehetabel?"
"Mehetabel it must be."
CHAPTER VII.
FALSE PERSPECTIVE.
As this story concerns that child which received the name of Mehetabel, it has been necessary to begin de novo with her as a babe, and to relate how she came by her name—that is her Christian name—and how it was that she had no surname at all. Also, how it was that she came to be an inmate of the Ship, and how that her fortunes were linked at the very outset of her career, on the one hand with Iver, who baptized her, and on the other hand with the Broom-Squire, whose roof—that at least of his shed—had sheltered her when every door of the squatter settlement in the Punch-Bowl, was resolutely closed against her.
But although this story begins with Mehetabel before she could speak, before she could assimilate anything more substantial than milk, yet the author has no intention of inflicting on the reader the record of her early days, of her acquisition of the power of speech, and capacity for consuming solid food. Neither is it his purpose to develop at large the growth of her mental powers, and to describe the evolution of her features. Suffice it then to say that Mehetabel grew up in the Ship Inn, almost as a child of the hostess and of her husband, with Iver as her playmate, and somewhat consequential patron.