!' Really, Dorothea, if you have no sense of propriety you
may leave the room!"--and Mrs. Valentine applied the smelling-bottle
to her birdlike nose as a sign that her nerves were racked to the
limit and she might at any moment succumb.

"All I know is," continued Dorothea obstinately, "that he was the
best-looking, the most interesting, the cleverest, the most
companionable man in the house-party, or for that matter in the
universe. You don't ask the last name of Orlando, or Benedick, or
Marcus Aurelius, or Albert of Belgium."

"It wouldn't be necessary." (Here Mrs. Valentine was quite
imperturbable.) "The Valentines have never been required to associate
with theatrical people or foreigners. In some ways I dislike the name
of Marmaduke as much as Hogg. It is so bombastic that it seems somehow
like an assumed name, or as if the creature had been born on the
stage. When coupled with Hogg it loses what little distinction it
might have had by itself. One almost wishes it had been Marmalade.
Marmalade Hogg suggests a quite nauseating combination of food, but
there is a certain appropriateness about it."

Dorothea's face was flaming. "You will never allow Duke to explain
himself, mother, nor hear me through when I attempt to make things
clear to you. You never acknowledge that you know, but you do know,
that Duke's people were English a long way back, and 'Marmaduke' is an
old family name. The Winthrops will tell you that Duke's father and
mother were named Forrest and that they changed it to Hogg to pacify
an old bachelor uncle who wanted to leave Duke six thousand dollars a
year. He had no voice in the matter; he was only twelve years old."

"It was a very short-sighted business proposition, and your Duke must
have been very young for his age,"--and Mrs. Valentine took another
deep sniff of lavender. "Sixty thousand a year wouldn't induce me to
be named Hogg, and I shall never consent to have one in my family!"

Dorothea burst into tears, a most uncommon occurrence.

"You have dwelt so long on this purely immaterial objection," she
sobbed, "that you have finally inoculated me with something of your
own feeling and made me miserable and ashamed. I dare say, too, I have
hurt Duke's pride by trying to give him a reason for your indifferent
attitude, yet never having courage for the real, piffling explanation.
I am mortified at my despicable weakness and I will overcome it by
realizing how unworthy I am to bear Duke's ho