“Will you call me a name I want you to call me?” inquired Dora, without moving.

“What is it?” I asked with a smile.

“It’s a stupid name,” she said, shaking her curls for a moment. “Child-wife.”

I laughingly asked my child-wife what her fancy was in desiring to be so called. She answered without moving, otherwise than as the arm I twined about her may have brought her blue eyes nearer to me:

“I don’t mean, you silly fellow, that you should use the name instead of Dora. I only mean that you should think of me that way. When you are going to be angry with me, say to yourself, ‘it’s only my child-wife!’ When I am very disappointing, say, ‘I knew, a long time ago, that she would make but a child-wife!’ When you miss what I should like to be, and I think can never be, say, ‘still my foolish child-wife loves me!’ For indeed I do.”