her tender, dainty darling, "nearly three times her age and no better
than he ought to be".

"Name?" snarled Colonel Matthew Devon de Warrenne. "Name the little
beast? Call him what you like, and then drown him." The tight-lipped
face of the elderly nurse flushed angrily, but before she could make
the indignant reply that her hurt and scandalized look presaged, the
Colonel added:--

"No, look here, call him _Damocles_, and done with it. The Sword hangs
over him too, I suppose, and he'll die by it, as all his ancestors
have done. Yes--"

"It's not a nice name, Sir, to my thinking," interrupted the woman,
"not for an only name--and for an only child. Let it be a second or
third name, Sir, if you want to give him such an outlandish one."

She fingered her new black dress nervously with twitching hands and
the tight lips trembled.

"He's to be named Damocles and nothing else," replied the Master, and,
as she turned away with a look of positive hate, he added
sardonically:--

"And then you can call him 'Dam' for short, you know, Nurse."

Nurse Beaton bridled, clenched her hands, and stiffened visibly. Had
the man been her social equal or any other than her master, her
pent-up wrath and indignation would have broken forth in a torrent of
scathing abuse.

"Never would I call the poor motherless lamb _Dam_, Sir," she
answered with restraint.

"Then call him _Dummy!_ Good morning, Nurse," snapped the Colonel.

As she turned to go, with a bitter sigh, she asked in the hopeless
tone of one who knows the waste of words:--

"You will not repent--I mean relent--and come to the christening of
your only son this afternoon, Sir?"

"Good morning, Nurse," observed Colonel Matthew Devon de Warrenne, and
resumed his hurried pacing of the verandah.

* * * * *

It is not enough that a man love his wife dearly and hold her the
sweetest, fairest, and best of women--he should tell her so, morning
and night.

There is a proverb (the unwisdom of many and the poor wit of one) that
says _Actions speak louder than Words_. Whether this is the most
untrustworthy of an untrustworthy class of generalizations is
debateable.

Anyhow, let no husband or lover believe it. Vain are the deeds of dumb
devotion, the unwearying forethought, the tender care, the gifts of
price, and the priceless gifts of attentive, watchful guard and guide,
the labours of Love--all vain. Silent is the speech of Action.

But res