“I was going to tell you,” he faltered, and then he remembered that there was practically nothing he could tell. He saved time by suggesting: “Perhaps she could go up-stairs a minute, while I talk to you alone?” “Would it be wrong for me to hear?” This was from the child. “You know I might throw a little light on the subject myself.” Mrs. Baron blushed rosily and placed her hand over her mouth, wrenching a swift smile therefrom. She had heard of precocious children. She disapproved of them. Neither of her own children had been in the least precocious. “Who ever heard anything like that?” she demanded of her son in frank amazement. “There are some things I ought to say to my mother alone,” declared Baron. He placed a persuasive hand on the child’s shoulder. “Afterward you can talk the matter over together.” Mrs. Baron’s doubts were returning. “I don’t see why we should make any mysteries,” she said. She looked at the child again, and again all her defenses were laid low. “I suppose she might go up-stairs to my sitting-room, if there’s anything to say. Tell me, child,” and she bent quite graciously over the small guest, “what is your name?” “I am Bonnie May,” was the response. The child was inordinately proud of her name, but she did not wish to be vainglorious now. She lowered her eyes with an obviously theatrical effect, assuming a nice modesty. Mrs. Baron observed sharply, and nodded her head. “That’s a queer name for a human being,” was her comment. She looked at her son as if she suddenly had a bad taste in her mouth. “It sounds like a doll-baby’s name.” The child was shocked by the unfriendliness--the rudeness--of this. Mrs. Baron followed up her words with more disparagement in the way of a steady, disapproving look. Precocious children ought to be snubbed, she thought. The good lady would not have offended one of her own age without a better reason; but so many good people do not greatly mind offending a child. “You know,” said Bonnie May, “I really didn’t have anything to do with picking out my own name. Somebody else did it for me. And maybe they decided on it because they thought it would look good on the four-sheets.” “On the----” But Baron swiftly interposed. “We can go into matters of that sort some other time,” he said. “I think it would be better for you to leave mother and me alone for a minute just now.” Bonnie May went out of the room in response to Baron’s gesture. “I’ll show you the way,” he said, and as he began to guide her up the stairs she turned toward him, glancing cautiously over his shoulder to the room they had just quitted. “Believe me,” she whispered, “that’s the first time I’ve had stage fright in years.” She mounted three or four steps and then paused again. “You know,” she confided, turning again, “she makes you think of a kind of honest sister to Lady Macbeth.” Baron stopped short, his hand on the balustrade. “Bonnie May,” he demanded, “will you tell me how old you are?”