In the first place, he had always been thought of as a little girl. It was the old story of “Your sister, Betsey Trotwood;” and when he presented himself, with an unflinching firmness, in the unexpected character of a little boy, serious remonstrance was addressed to him. “This habit you have contracted of being a little boy,” his mamma said to him, “is most inconvenient. Your name was to be Vivien. ‘Vivien’ is Early English, and picturesque and full of color; Vivian, which is a boy’s name, I don’t think so much of. It sounds like a dandy, and reminds me of Vivian Grey; but, after the way you have behaved, it is about all I can do for you, because I am too tired of thinking of names to be equal to inventing anything else.” If it had not been for his disguise, and his determination not to be betrayed into the weakness of speech, it is quite possible he might have responded: “If you will trust the matter to me, I will manage to reconcile you to the name, and make you feel there is some consolation for the fact that I preferred to be myself, instead of Vivien. Just give me time.” We were, of course, obliged to give him time, and he wasted none of it. One of the favorite jokes was that he was endeavoring to ingratiate himself with us, and by a strict attention to business to merit future patronage. We felt it very clever of him to elect to do this quietly; to occupy the position he had chosen for himself with such unobtrusiveness that no one could possibly object to him. This might really have been the deepest craft. To have proved one’s self an individual to whom no one can object on any pretext, is really an enormous step in the direction of gaining a foothold. It is quite possible that he realized that the step he had taken had been somewhat premature; that to introduce himself to a family absorbed in study and foreign travel, and an elder brother aged eighteen months, had not been entirely discreet, and that a general decorum of manner would be required to obliterate the impression that he had been somewhat inconsiderate. His elder brother had decided to become a stately beauty, and after some indeterminate months had set up as premonitory symptoms large brown eyes, a deepening golden tinge of hair, and a distinguished and gracefully exclusive demeanor. His opinion of the new-comer was that he was an interloper. I think his private impression was that he was vulgar, also that he was fatuous and unnecessary. He used to stand by his nurse’s knee when she held the intruder, and regard her with haughty reflection from under his eyelids. She had hitherto been his sole property, and her defection seemed to him to denote inferior taste and instability of character. On one occasion, after standing by her in disapproving silence for some time, while he alternately looked at her and then at the white bundle on her knee, he waved his hand toward the grate, remarking, with more dignity of demeanor than clearness of enunciation: