--'because the house forled
over, and Mrs. Ber underneath and Me and Dolly are sory.'" Gwen stopped
a moment to consider the first two words of this sentence, and decided
that "I say" was an apostrophe. "I see," said she, "that the next
sentence has your name in it again, only he's left out the U, and made
you look something between Spider and Spectre."

"The dear boy! What does he say next about me?" The old lady was looking
intensely happy; a reflex action of Dave.

"There's a dreadful hard word comes next ... Oh--I see what it is!
'Supposing.' Only he's made it 'sorsppposing'--such a lot of P's! I
think it is only to show how diffidently he makes the suggestion. It
doesn't matter. Let's get on. 'Supposing you was to show'--something I
really cannot make head or tail of--'to Mrs. Spictre who is my other
graney?' I wonder what on earth it can be!"

"I don't think it's any use my looking, my dear. What letters does it
look most like?"

"Why!--here's an M, and a U, and a C, and an E, and an R, and an I, and
a J. That's a word by itself. 'Mucerij.' But what word can he mean? _It_
can't be _mucilage_; that's impossible! I thought it might be _museum_
at first, as it was to be shown. But it's written too plain, in a big
round hand--all in capitals. What _can_ it be?" And Gwen sat there
puzzling, turning the word this way and that, looking all the lovelier
for the ripple of amusement on her face at the absurd penmanship of the
neophyte.

Poor dear Dave! With the clearest possible perception of the name
Muggeridge, when spoken, he could go no nearer to correct writing of it
than this! He could hardly have known of the two G's, from the sound;
but the omission of the cross-bar from the one that was _de rigueur_ was
certainly a _lapsus calami_, and a serious one. The last syllable was
merely phonetic, and unrecognisable; but the G that looked like a C was
fatal.

It was an odd chance indeed that brought this name, or its distortion,
to challenge recognition at this moment, when the thought of its owner
had just passed off the mind that might have recognised it, helped by a
slight emendation. The story dwells on it from a kind of fascination,
due to the almost incredible strangeness of these two sisters' utter
unconsciousness of one another, and yet so near together! It was almost
as though a mine were laid beneath their feet, and this memory of a name
floated over it as a spark, and drifted away on a wind of chance to be