for discrepancies, and the elder sister was quick to correct.

"Daniel didn't fight the lions! What's the use of being high falutin'
and making similes that aren't correct?"

"Dear Clemence, you _are_ so literal!" Darsie tilted her head with an
air of superiority which reduced the elder to silence, the while she
cogitated painfully why such a charge should be cast as a reproach. To
be literal was to be correct. Daniel had _not_ fought the lions!
Darsie had muddled up the fact in her usual scatterbrain fashion, and by
good right should have deplored her error. Darsie, however, was seldom
known to do anything so dull; she preferred by a nimble change of front
to put others in the wrong, and keep the honours to herself. Now, after
a momentary pause, she skimmed lightly on to another phase of the
subject. "What should you say was the character and life history of a
woman who could call her eldest child `Daniel,' the second `Viola
Imogen,' and the third and fourth `Hannah' and `John'?"

Clemence had no inspiration on the subject. She said: "Don't be silly!"
sharply, and left it to Lavender to supply the necessary stimulus.

"_Tell_ us, Darsie, tell us! You make it up--"

"My dear, it is evident to the meanest intellect. She was the child of
a simple country household, who, on her marriage, went to live in a
town; and when her first-born son was born, she pined to have him
christened by her father's name in the grey old church beneath the ivy
tower; so they travelled there, and the white-haired sire held the
infant at the font, while the tears furrowed his aged cheeks. _But_--by
slow degrees the insidious effects of the great capital invaded the mind
of the sweet young wife, and the simple tastes of her girlhood turned to
vanity, so that when the second babe was born, and her husband wished to
call her Hannah after her sainted grandmother, she wept, and made an
awful fuss, and would not be consoled until he gave in to Viola Imogen,
and a christening cloak trimmed with plush. And she was christened in a
city church, and the organ pealed, and the godmothers wore rich array,
and the poor old father stayed at home and had a slice of christening
cake sent by the post. But the years passed on. Saddened and sobered
by the discipline of life, aged and worn, her thoughts turned once more
to her quiet youth, and when at last a third child--"

"There's only two years between them!"

Darsie frowned, but continued her