ry serious!

I beg to differ from you. We had been brought together legitimately
enough, down at the church-decoration-gathering in the school-room: we
had been regularly introduced by no less a clerical authority than
little Miss Pimpernell, the vicar's sister: we had then and there
associated under the safest chaperonage--good heavens! would not Miss
Spight's jealous green eyes, that were certain to pick out the tiniest
blot in her fellow man or woman, and Lady Dasher's stately, albeit
melancholy presence, satisfy you? Thus, the "convenances," that horrid
Anglo-French pseudonym, of the still more horrible bugbear "society,"
had no cause to consider themselves neglected and find an excuse for
taking umbrage. From this point, our acquaintanceship naturally and
gradually ripened. We got intimate: it was our fate, I suppose--what
more or less would you have expected?

Besides, although, mind you, I do not consider myself in any way bound
to allay your curiosity and satisfy your compunctious scruples, you
should remember that all of us young parishioners of Saint Canon's--
Horner, Baby Blake, Lizzie Dangler and the rest--had known each other
almost from the distant days of childhood; and, consequently, were in
the habit of _tutoyer_-ing one another, using our respective "given"
names in familiar conversation. The habit may be a bad one, it is true,
but you cannot prevent it sometimes. There is no practice so capable of
imitation as that of calling one another by the Christian name. It is
just like that of the monkeys all cleaning their teeth along the banks
of the Amazon with pieces of stick, because they saw Professor Agassiz
setting them an example one fine morning, when engaged on his toilet in
company with a tooth-brush. You can't help yourself: you must bow to
the custom and follow suit.

In this instance, there was Miss Pimpernell, always addressing _her_ as
"Min," and _me_ as "Frank." The Dasher girls and others soon learnt to
do the same. What more likely than that we ourselves should fall into a
similar friendly system? It was only reasonable; and a result which
even a less alert person than yourself would have looked for. At all
events, neither of us meant any harm by it; and I am willing to "take my
affidavit" to that effect any day you please to name, in any Court of
Justice you may appoint.

Notwithstanding the intimate footing that now existed between Min and
myself, the fact of my non-acquain