‘And you adopted your friend’s parent for the nonce; a thoroughly Roman custom that of adoption, and in harmony with your Roman name. By the way, were you christened Poppæa Daphne, or Daphne Poppæa?’ He had been amusing himself with the squirrel for the last half-hour; but he found Daphne’s embarrassment ever so much more amusing than the squirrel. He felt no more seriously about the one than about the other. ‘Don’t,’ exclaimed Daphne; ‘you must have known quite well from the first moment that my name wasn’t Poppæa, just as well as I knew that yours wasn’t Nero.’ ‘Well, I had a shrewd suspicion that you were romancing about the name; but I swallowed the grocer. That was too bad of you. Do you know that you made me quite unhappy? I was miserable at the idea that such a girl as you could be allied with grocery. A ridiculous prejudice, was it not, in a man whose father began life as a day-labourer?’ Daphne had sunk into a low chair by the squirrel’s cage, and was feeding that pampered favourite with the green points of some choice conifer. She seemed more taken up by his movements than by her future brother-in-law. Her agitation had passed, yet she was pale still, only the faintest bloom in her fair cheek, the pink of a wild rose. ‘Please don’t tell Lina,’ she pleaded, with her eyes on the squirrel. ‘Oh, she doesn’t know anything about it then?’ ‘Not a word. I dared not tell her. When I tried to do so, I became suddenly aware how horridly I had behaved. Martha Dibb and I were silly, thoughtless creatures, acting on the impulse of the moment.’ ‘I don’t think there was much impulse about Miss Dibb,’ said Mr. Goring. ‘It seemed to me that she only looked on.’ ‘It is disgustingly mean of you to say that!’ exclaimed Daphne, recurring to her school-girl phraseology, which she had somewhat modified at South Hill. ‘Forgive me. And I must really hold my tongue about our delicious picnics? Of course I shall obey you, little one. But I hate secrets, and am a bad hand at keeping them. I shall never forget those two happy days at Fontainebleau. How strange that you and I, who were destined to become brother and sister, should make each other’s acquaintance in that haphazard, informal fashion! It seemed almost as if we were fated to meet, didn’t it?’ ‘Was that the fate you read in my hand?’