again. But I only thought of him the more, though all
I knew about him was his portrait--such a fine fellow--and that he
had the same swaggering, ridiculous name as mine.

How my father allowed me to be christened Bayard I cannot imagine. But
I was rather proud of it at one time--in the days when I wore long
curls, and was so accustomed to hearing myself called "a perfect
picture," and to having my little sayings quoted by my mother and her
friends, that it made me miserable if grown-up people took the liberty
of attending to anything but me. I remember wriggling myself off my
mother's knee when I wanted change, and how she gave me her watch to
keep me quiet, and stroked my curls, and called me her fair-haired
knight, and her little Bayard; though, remembering also, how
lingeringly I used just not to do her bidding, ate the sugar when she
wasn't looking, tried to bawl myself into fits, kicked the
nurse-girl's shins, and dared not go upstairs by myself after dark--I
must confess that a young chimpanzee would have as good claims as I
had to represent that model of self-conquest and true chivalry, "the
Knight without fear and without reproach."

However, the vanity of it did not last long. I wonder if that
grand-faced godfather of mine suffered as I suffered when he went to
school and said his name was Bayard? I owe a day in harvest to the
young wag who turned it into Backyard. I gave in my name as Backyard
to every subsequent inquirer, and Backyard I modestly remained.

CHAPTER II.

"The lady with the gay macaw."

LONGFELLOW.

My sisters are much like other fellows' sisters, excepting Lettice.
That child is like no one but herself.

I used to tease the other girls for fun, but I teased Lettice on
principle--to knock the nonsense out of her. She was only eight, and
very small, but, from the top row of her tight little curls to the
rosettes on her best shoes, she seemed to me a mass of affectation.

Strangers always liked Lettice. I believe she was born with a company
voice in her mouth; and she would flit like a butterfly from one
grown-up person to another, chit-chattering, whilst some of us stood
pounding our knuckles in our pockets, and tying our legs into knots,
as we wished the drawing-room carpet would open and let us through
into the cellar to play at catacombs.

That was how Cocky came. Lettice's airs and graces bewitched the old
lady who called in the yellow chariot, and was so like a cockat