"There, now, Dolly!" said Aunt M'riar. "Why don't you tell clear, a bit at a time, and get yourself understood? Granny Marrowbone's the new name, my lady, she's christened her doll, Dolly. So she should be known apart, Dolly being, as you might say, Dolly herself. Because her uncle he pointed out to her, 'Dolly,' he said, 'you're in for thinkin' out some new name for this here baby of yours, to say which is which. Or 'us you'll get that mixed up, nobody'll know!'"
"I put my oar in," said Uncle Mo, "for to avoid what they call coarmplications nowadays." He never lost an opportunity of hinting at the fallings off of the Age. "So she and Dave they turns to and thinks one out. I should have felt more like Sally or Sooky or Martilda myself. Or Queen Wictoria." The last was a gracious concession to Her Majesty; who, in the eyes of Uncle Mo, had recently come to the throne.
"No!" said Dolly firmly. "Gwanny Mawwowbone!" This was very articulately delivered, the previous, or slipshod, pronunciation having been more nearly Granny Mallowbone.
"Certainly!" said Gwen, assenting. "Dolly's dolly Dolly shall be Granny Marrowbone. Only it makes Dolly out rather old."
Dolly seemed to take exception to this. "I was four on my birfday," said she. "I shan't be five not till my next birfday, such a long, long, long, long time."
"And you'll stop four till you're five," said Gwen. "Won't you, Dolly dear? What very blue eyes the little person has!" They were fixed on the speaker with all the solemnity the contemplation of a geological period of Time inspires. The little person nodded gravely—about the Time, not about her eyes—and said:—"Ass!"
Dave thrust himself forward as an interpreter of Dolly's secret wishes, saying, to the astonishment of his aunt and uncle:—"Dorly wants to take her upstairs to show her where the tea's to be set out when Mrs. Spicture comes back."
Remonstrance was absolutely necessary, but what form could it take? Aunt M'riar was forced back on her usual resource, her lack of previous experience of a similar enormity:—"Well, I'm sure, a big boy like you to call a lady her! I never did, in all my born days!" Uncle Mo meanly threw the responsibility of the terms of an absolutely necessary amendment on the culprit himself, saying:—"You're a nice young monkey! Where's your manners? Is that what they larn you to say at school? What's a lady's name when you speak to her?" He had no one but himself to thank for the consequences. Dave, who, jointly with Dolly, was just then on the most intimate footing with the young lady, responded point-blank:—"Well—Gwen, then! She said so. Sister Gwen."
Her young ladyship's laugh rang out with such musical cordiality that the two horror-stricken faces relaxed, and Uncle Mo's got so far as the beginning of a smile. "It's all quite right," said Gwen. "I told Dave I was Gwen just this minute when you were upstairs. He's made it 'sister'—so we shan't be compromised, either of us." Whereupon Dave, quite in the dark, assented from sheer courtesy.
Aunt M'riar seemed to think it a reasonable arrangement, and Uncle Mo, with a twinkle in his eye, said:—"It's better than hollerin' out 'she' and 'her,' like a porter at a railway-station."