"Oh, no, thank you. I shall go to the old place where Miss Markham and I lived before. The bishop and Mrs. Kennion sent us there because there is a piano, and the old ladies, being deaf, don't mind musical lodgers. Didn't the concert go off beautifully! Such artists, those two men; so easy to do one's best in such company." "It was a triumph! Doesn't it completely efface the memory of the plate and the pennies?" "Yes," Tommy answered. "I bear no ill-will to any living creature. The only flaw is my horrid name. Can't you think of another for me? I've just had an anonymous note. Hear it!" (taking it from her glove): DEAR MADAM: The name of Thomasina Tucker is one of those bizarre Americanisms that pain us so frequently in England. I fancy you must have assumed it for public use, and if so, I beg you will change it now, before you become too famous. The grotesque name of Thomasina Tucker belittles your exquisite art. Very truly yours, A WELL WISHER. "What do you think of that?" Appleton laughed heartily and scanned the note. "It is from some doddering old woman," he said. "The name given you by your sponsors in baptism to be condemned as a 'bizarre Americanism'!" "I cannot think why the loyalty of my dear mother and father to Tucker, and to Thomas, should have made them saddle me with such a handicap! They might have known I was going to sing, for I bawled incessantly from birth to the age of twelve months. I shall have to change my name, and you must help me to choose. Au revoir!"--and she darted away with a handshake and a friendly backward glance from the door. "Can I think of another name for her?" apostrophized Appleton to himself. "Can feminine unconsciousness and cruelty go farther than that? Another name for her shrieks from the very housetops, and I agree with 'Well Wisher' that she ought to take it before she becomes too famous; before it would be necessary, for instance, to describe her as Madame Tucker-Appleton!" VI These are the verses: TO MISS TOMMY TUCKER (WITH A BUNCH OF MIGNONETTE) A garden and a yellow wedge Of sunshine slipping through, And there, beside a bit of hedge, Forget-me-nots so blue, Bright four-o'clocks and spicy pinks, And sweet, old-fashioned roses, With daffodils and crocuses, And other fragrant posies, And in a corner, 'neath the shade By flowering apple branches made, Grew mignonette.