m,
sinewy sort. Nothing flabby, an' you love me!

"I've thought of his name sometimes; names count for a good deal. There
are moods when I dream of Ralph and feel a fascination for Peter; moods
when I have a secret hankering for Guy; moods again when he could not
possibly be any one but Jack. People say that if you really love a man,
his name does not matter. I've known a woman to settle down with
`Percy,' and live happily ever after. I've heard of another who
espoused a `Samuel,' and was apparently content. It is conceivable that
I might do the same, but `Alfred' gives me a crawl. It is settled,
firm, as the everlasting hills, that I can never belong to Alfred!

"If there is one thing more than another for which I bless my parents,
and praise them in the gate, it is that they called me by a durable
Christian name. Katherine! It is not beautiful; it is not poetic, but
it is at least seemly and discreet. You may take liberties with
Katherine, and it will never disgrace you. When you are small and
curly-headed you can pose as `Kitty Clover' with beguiling effect. I
did myself, for quite a long run. Later on, dropping the Clover, you
may be known to schoolmates as Kitty or Kate. There's a snap about Kate
which keeps Pearls and Rubies in their place. Katrine is, as you
observe, quite attractive for the days of youth; Katherine is a refuge
for old age. Can you imagine anything more appropriate for a spinster
lady in a country town?

"The only married couple whom I have studied from the _inside_ was my
brother and his wife during that little six months. It seemed quite a
perfect thing at the time, but looking back from the sober height of
twenty-six, it seems more like a play, than real, serious life. She was
only nineteen; a pretty thing; such a babe; poor little, happy Juliet!
and Martin was a boy with her. Now, as you say, he is a man. I wonder
sometimes--

"We have a visitor staying with us just now. Her name is Grizel Dundas,
and she is twenty-eight, and very beautiful or rather plain, according
to the hour of the day, and her own mood and intention. Sometimes I
suspect that she deliberately _makes_ herself plain, for the fun of
confounding people with her beauty an hour later on. Also she may
probably turn out to be one of the greatest heiresses in London, or be
left with a few hundreds a year, and she is very lazy, and very
energetic, and talks like a schoolboy, and looks like a fay, and
dre