“All in good time, my love. Agnes has had her father to take care of for these many years, you should remember. Even when she was quite a child, she was the Agnes whom we know,” said I.
“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