!" This was very articulately
delivered, the previous, or slipshod, pronunciation having been more
nearly Granny Mallowbone.

"Certainly!" said Gwen, assenting. "Dolly's dolly Dolly shall be Granny
Marrowbone. Only it makes Dolly out rather old."

Dolly seemed to take exception to this. "I _was_ four on my birfday,"
said she. "I shan't be five not till my _next_ birfday, such a long,
long, long, long time."

"And you'll stop four till you're five," said Gwen. "Won't you, Dolly
dear? What very blue eyes the little person has!" They were fixed on the
speaker with all the solemnity the contemplation of a geological period
of Time inspires. The little person nodded gravely--about the Time, not
about her eyes--and said:--"Ass!"

Dave thrust himself forward as an interpreter of Dolly's secret wishes,
saying, to the astonishment of his aunt and uncle:--"Dorly wants to take
_her_ upstairs to show _her_ where the tea's to be set out when Mrs.
Spicture comes back."

Remonstrance was absolutely necessary, but what form could it take? Aunt
M'riar was forced back on her usual resource, her lack of previous
experience of a similar enormity:--"Well, I'm sure, a big boy like you
to call a lady _her_! I never did, in all my born days!" Uncle Mo meanly
threw the responsibility of the terms of an absolutely necessary
amendment on the culprit himself, saying:--"You're a nice young monkey!
Where's your manners? Is that what they larn you to say at school?
What's a lady's name when you speak to her?" He had no one but himself
to thank for the consequences. Dave, who, jointly with Dolly, was just
then on the most intimate footing with the young lady, responded
point-blank:--"Well--_Gwen_, then! _She_ said so. Sister Gwen."

Her young ladyship's laugh rang out with such musical cordiality that
the two horror-stricken faces relaxed, and Uncle Mo's got so far as the
beginning of a smile. "It's all quite right," said Gwen. "I told Dave I
was Gwen just this minute when you were upstairs. He's made it
'sister'--so we shan't be compromised, either of us." Whereupon Dave,
quite in the dark, assented from sheer courtesy.

Aunt M'riar seemed to think it a reasonable arrangement, and Uncle Mo,
with a twinkle in his eye, said:--"It's better than hollerin' out 'she'
and 'her,' like a porter at a railway-station."

But her ladyship had not come solely to have a symposium with Dave and
Dolly. So she suggested that both should go upstairs and rehear