"By all means. Only look alive! Because your father's cigar is waning, and copy is behindhand. Go it!"
"We call her Judy. Cat and I do. Short for Judith."
"You'll make your little sister as bad as yourself, and she's too sharp by half already. How do you know her name's Judith? It might be Sarah—or Euterpe."
"But it ain't. It's Judith."
"Ah!—but how do you know? That's the point."
"Because we listened. And we knew the mater meant her."
Perhaps if Master Bob had seen his father's face, it would have checked his outflow of virgin candour. But he was behind him, and saw nothing. Challis was balancing a nice question in his mind. Ought he not to check this revelation? Was it not like eavesdropping to listen to it? He decided that he might, as Marianne would surely never say before the children anything she would not wish him to hear. But he wanted to know, too. Still, he was conscious enough of his wish to know, to find it necessary to impute his reluctance to be influenced by it to that mental vice he had invented a name for.
"How did you know your mother meant her? How did you know she didn't mean the new cook?"
"No fear! Her name's Priscilla. Besides, the mater calls her Steptoe. Besides, Aunt Lotty did it, too."
"Did what? What did Aunt Lotty do?"