a boy doll," Tess observed. "You
really should have a very pretty name for him."

"I know," agreed the anxious mother. "But all the nice names seem to
have been used up. Wha--what do you think of 'Brandywine,' Tessie?"

"Goodness! The name of that avenue we just passed? Why, Dot!" ejaculated
the horrified older sister. "That's a _nawful_ name! And we're
temp'rance."

"Yes. It is kind of liquorish, I s'pose," admitted Dot. "But it sounds
different. Tom, and Edgar, and Wilfred, and Feodor, and St. John, and
Clarence, and Montmorency, and Peter, and Henry, and Vanscombe, and
Michael, and all those others, have been used over and over again in
naming babies," Dot said with seriousness. "You know we've heard of
somebody, or know somebody, named by all of those names. Oh, Tess!" she
ejaculated suddenly, "look there!"

The automobile party were just passing Mr. Stout's big tobacco barn. One
leaf of the main door was open and hooked back and Dot was pointing
eagerly to some large black letters painted upon the inside of this
door.

"What a pretty name that is!" she whispered to Tess, excitedly.
"'Nosmo'! Did you ever hear of it before?"

"No-o, Dottie, I never did," her sister agreed slowly. "'Nosmo' sounds
kind of funny, doesn't it? I--I never heard of a boy called that."

"Well, Tess Kenway!" cried her little sister indignantly, "isn't that
just what we want? A boy's name that hasn't ever been used on a boy
before?"

"That's so, Dottie," agreed the more cautious Tess. "That _is_ so. No
boy has had it and spoiled it by being bad." Tess' opinion of the genus
boy was governed largely by the attitude Ruth seemed to hold toward all
boyhood.

"It's brand new," declared Dot, christening the sailor-baby on the spot,
and without bell, book, or candle. "Nosmo Kenway. Isn't that nice? He's
so cute, too!" and she seized the new doll and pressed her red lips to
the sailor-boy's highly flushed cheek.

"Nosmo Kenway," murmured Tess. "Oughtn't he to have a middle name?"

"Oh, well," said Dot. "We can give him that afterward--if we find a good
one. But middle names don't really count, after all."

The merry party of automobilists ran out as far as Mr. Bob
Buckham's--the strawberry man, as they called him--a very good friend of
theirs. Mrs. Buckham was confined to her chair and the Corner House
girls always took her flowers or something nice when they called at the
farm-house.

The Kenways and Neale went in to see the invalid