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it literally. She criticised the name, but was easily persuaded by her mother-in-law to make no objection. The elder Mrs Ottley pointed out that it might have been very much worse. 'But it's not a pretty name,' objected Edith. 'If it wasn't to be Matilda, I should rather have called her something out of Maeterlinck--Ygraine, or Ysolyn--something like that.' 'Yes, dear, Mygraine's a nice name, too,' said Mrs Ottley, in her humouring way, 'and so is Vaselyn. But what does it really matter? I shouldn't hold out on a point like this. One gets used to a name. Let the poor child be called Asparagus if he wishes it, and let him feel he has got his own way.' So the young girl was named Aspasia Matilda Ottley. It was characteristic of Edith that she kept to her own point, though not aggressively. When Bruce returned after his after-cure, it was too late to do anything but pretend he had meant it seriously. Archie called his sister Dilly. Archie had been rather hurt at the--as it seemed to him--unnecessary excitement about Dilly. Not that he was jealous in any way. It was rather that he was afraid it would spoil her to be made so much of at her age; make her, perhaps, egotistical and vain. But it was not Archie's way to show these fears openly. He did not weep loudly or throw things about as many boys might have done. His methods were more roundabout, more subtle. He gave hints and suggestions of his views that should have been understood by the intelligent. He said one morning with some indirectness: 'I had such a lovely dream last night, Mother.' 'Did you, pet? How sweet of you. What was it?' 'Oh, nothing much. It was all right. Very nice. It was a lovely dream. I dreamt I was in heaven.' 'Really! How delightful. Who was there?' This is always a woman's first question. 'Oh, you were there, of course. And father. Nurse, too. It was a lovely dream. Such a nice place.' 'Was Dilly there?' 'Dilly? Er--no--no--she wasn't. She was in the night nursery, with Satan.' Sometimes Edith thought that her daughter's names were decidedly a failure--Aspasia by mistake, Matilda through obstinacy, and Dilly by accident. However the child herself was a success. She was four years old when the incident occurred about the Mitchells. The whole of this story turns eventually on the Mitchells. The Ottleys lived in a concise white flat at Knightsbridge. Bruce's father had some time ago left him a good income on cert
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