m?"

"Oh, no," answered Mrs Leigh in rather a doubtful tone. She stood up
and weighed the child in her arms, moving nearer the window. "She's a
little thing, but I dare say she's not the less strong for that."

"It makes me naturally a bit fearsome over her," said Mrs White; "for,
as you know, ma'am, I've buried three children since we've bin here.
Ne'er a one of 'em all left me. It seems when I look at this little un
as how I _must_ keep her. I don't seem as if I _could_ let her go too."

"Oh, she'll grow up and be a comfort to you, I don't doubt," said Mrs
Leigh cheerfully. "Fair-complexioned children are very often
wonderfully healthy and strong. But really," she continued, looking
closely at the baby's face, "I never saw such a skin in my life. Why,
she's as white as milk, or snow, or a lily, or--" She paused for a
comparison, and suddenly added, as her eye fell on the flowers, "or that
bunch of lilac."

"You're right, ma'am," agreed Mrs White with a smile of intense
gratification.

"And if I were you," continued Mrs Leigh, her good-natured face beaming
all over with a happy idea, "I should call her `Lilac'. That would be a
beautiful name for her. Lilac White. Nothing could be better; it seems
made for her."

Mrs White's expression changed to one of grave doubt.

"It do _seem_ as how it would fit her," she said; "but that's not a
Christian name, is it, ma'am?"

"Well, it would make it one if you had her christened so, you see."

"I was thinking of making so bold as to call her `Annie', and to ask you
to stand for her, ma'am."

"And so I will, with pleasure. But don't call her Annie; we've got so
many Annies in the parish already it's quite confusing--and so many
Whites too. We should have to say `Annie White on the hill' every time
we spoke of her. I'm always mixing them up as it is. _Don't_ call her
Annie, Mrs White, Lilac's far better. Ask your husband what he thinks
of it."

"Oh! Jem, he'll think as I do, ma'am," said Mrs White at once; "it
isn't _Jem_."

"Who is it, then? If you both like the name it can't matter to anyone
else."

"Well, ma'am," said Mrs White hesitatingly, as she took her child from
Mrs Leigh, and rocked it gently in her arms, "they'll all say down
below in the village, as how it's a fancy sort of a name, and maybe when
she grows up they'll laugh at her for it. I shouldn't like to feel as
how I'd given her a name to be made game of."

But Mrs Leigh was much