ce."

Mrs. Meredith was delighted at the opportunity to make easy vague
comment on a harmless subject.

"What a beautiful study it must be," she said with authority.

"Must be!" exclaimed Pansy; "why, Mrs. Meredith, don't you _know_?
Don't you understand botany?"

Pansy had an idea that in Dent's home botany was as familiarly
apprehended as peas and turnips in hers.

"I am afraid not," replied Mrs. Meredith, a little coolly. Her
mission had been to adorn and people the earth, not to study it.
And among persons of her acquaintance it was the prime duty of each
not to lay bare the others' ignorance, but to make a little
knowledge appear as great as possible. It was discomfiting to have
Pansy charge upon what after all was only a vacant spot in her
mind. She added, as defensively intimating that the subject had
another dangerous side:

"When I was a girl, young ladies at school did not learn much
botany; but they paid a great deal of attention to their manners."

"Why did not they learn it after they had left school and after
they had learned manners?" inquired Pansy, with ruthless
enthusiasm. "It is such a mistake to stop learning everything
simply because you have stopped school. Don't you think so?"

"When a girl marries, my dear, she soon has other studies to take
up. She has a house and husband. The girls of my day, I am
afraid, gave up their botanies for their duties: it may be
different now."

"No matter how many children I may have," said Pansy, positively,
"I shall never--give--up--botany! Besides, you know, Mrs.
Meredith, that we study botany only during the summer months, and I
do hope--" she broke off suddenly.

Mrs. Meredith smoothed her dress nervously and sought to find her
chair comfortable.

"Your mother named you Pansy," she remarked, taking a gloomy view of
the present moment and of the whole future of this acquaintanceship.

That this should be the name of a woman was to her a mistake, a
crime. Her sense of fitness demanded that names should be given to
infants with reference to their adult characters and eventual
positions in life. She liked her own name "Caroline"; and she
liked "Margaret" and all such womanly, motherly, dignified, stately
appellatives. As for "Pansy," it had been the name of one of her
husband's shorthorns, a premium animal at the county fairs; the
silver cup was on the sideboard in the dining room now.

"Yes, Mrs. Meredith," replied Pansy, "that was the