it literally.

She criticised the name, but was easily persuaded by her mother-in-law
to make no objection. The elder Mrs Ottley pointed out that it might
have been very much worse.

'But it's not a pretty name,' objected Edith. 'If it wasn't to be
Matilda, I should rather have called her something out of
Maeterlinck--Ygraine, or Ysolyn--something like that.'

'Yes, dear, Mygraine's a nice name, too,' said Mrs Ottley, in her
humouring way, 'and so is Vaselyn. But what does it really matter? I
shouldn't hold out on a point like this. One gets used to a name. Let
the poor child be called Asparagus if he wishes it, and let him feel he
has got his own way.'

So the young girl was named Aspasia Matilda Ottley. It was
characteristic of Edith that she kept to her own point, though not
aggressively. When Bruce returned after his after-cure, it was too
late to do anything but pretend he had meant it seriously.

Archie called his sister Dilly.

Archie had been rather hurt at the--as it seemed to him--unnecessary
excitement about Dilly. Not that he was jealous in any way. It was
rather that he was afraid it would spoil her to be made so much of at
her age; make her, perhaps, egotistical and vain. But it was not
Archie's way to show these fears openly. He did not weep loudly or
throw things about as many boys might have done. His methods were more
roundabout, more subtle. He gave hints and suggestions of his views
that should have been understood by the intelligent. He said one
morning with some indirectness:

'I had such a lovely dream last night, Mother.'

'Did you, pet? How sweet of you. What was it?'

'Oh, nothing much. It was all right. Very nice. It was a lovely dream.
I dreamt I was in heaven.'

'Really! How delightful. Who was there?'

This is always a woman's first question.

'Oh, you were there, of course. And father. Nurse, too. It was a lovely
dream. Such a nice place.'

'Was Dilly there?'

'Dilly? Er--no--no--she wasn't. She was in the night nursery, with
Satan.'

Sometimes Edith thought that her daughter's names were decidedly a
failure--Aspasia by mistake, Matilda through obstinacy, and Dilly by
accident. However the child herself was a success. She was four years
old when the incident occurred about the Mitchells. The whole of this
story turns eventually on the Mitchells.

The Ottleys lived in a concise white flat at Knightsbridge. Bruce's
father had some time ago left him a good income on cert