a few words to you, dear girls,
before we part for the night.'

'What is that, dad?' asked Gentian.

'I wonder whether you remember what your real names are.'

'The names that were given us at the font?' said Jasmine.

'Yes; your baptismal names--your real names.'

'I 'll say them off fast enough,' said Jasmine. 'There's Jasmine,
that's me; there 's Gentian, meaning the little gray-eyed girl in the
corner; there's Rose, who always will be and can be nothing but Rose;
there's Hollyhock; there's Delphinium. Delphinium is hard to say, but
Delphy is quite easy.'

'And I suppose you think,' said their father in his half-humorous,
half-serious voice, 'that you were really baptised by those names?'

'Why, of course, Dumpy Dad!' cried Hollyhock.

'Well, I must undeceive you, my dear Flower Girls. Your mother and I
took a notion to have you baptised by certain names and called by
others. Jasmine is really Lucy; Gentian is Margaret; Hollyhock, your
real name is Jacqueline; Rose of the Garden is, however, _really_ Rose;
and Delphinium was baptised Dorothy.'

'Well, that is wonderful!' exclaimed Hollyhock. 'I must write down the
names before they escape my memory. Give me a bit of paper and a
pencil, Daddy Dumps, that I may write down at once our true church
names.'

'Here you are, Hollyhock,' said Lennox; 'and do not forget that in the
eyes of your step-aunt you are five little girls, not flowers.'

'In the eyes of the old horror,' whispered Hollyhock, who felt much
excited at the change in the names.

'I wonder now,' said Gentian when Hollyhock's task was finished, and
she passed her scribble to her father to see--'I wonder whether there
is a similar mistake in the names of our cousins--or _brothers_, as
they really are to us.'

'Yes, they are like brothers to you, my dears; and your aunt Cecilia
was so taken by the notion of the flower names for you that she must
needs copy my wife and me, and so it happens that Jasper is really
John, Sapphire is Robert, Garnet is Wallace, called after his gallant
father, Major Constable'----

'"Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled,"' sang Hollyhock in her rich, clear
voice. 'Aweel, I love him better than ever, the bonnie lad with his
black eyes.'

'Children,' said Lennox, 'it is high time for you all to go to bed. We
must get through the boys' names as fast as possible. Opal's real name
is Andrew.'

'Poor lad,' continued Hollyhock, 'fit servant to Wallace.'

'And,' add