MELISANDE. It's a wonderful night, Mother. Midsummer Night. I'm not cold. MRS. KNOWLE. But you shuddered. I distinctly saw you shudder. Didn't you see her, Jane? JANE. I'm afraid I wasn't looking, Aunt Mary. MELISANDE. I didn't shudder because I was cold. I shuddered because you will keep calling me by that horrible name. I shudder every time I hear it. MRS. KNOWLE (surprised). What name, Sandy? MELISANDE. There it is again. Oh, why did you christen me by such a wonderful, beautiful, magical name as Melisande, if you were going to call me Sandy? MRS. KNOWLE. Well, dear, as I think I've told you, that was a mistake of your father's. I suppose he got it out of some book. I should certainly never have agreed to it, if I had heard him distinctly. I thought he said Millicent--after your Aunt Milly. And not being very well at the time, and leaving it all to him, I never really knew about it until it was too late to do anything. I did say to your father, "Can't we christen her again?" But there was nothing in the prayer book about it except "riper years," and nobody seemed to know when riper years began. Besides, we were all calling you Sandy then. I think Sandy is a very pretty name, don't you, Jane? JANE. Oh, but don't you think Melisande is beautiful, Aunt Mary? I mean really beautiful. MRS. KNOWLE. Well, it never seems to me quite respectable, not for a nicely-brought-up young girl in a Christian house. It makes me think of the sort of person who meets a strange young man to whom she has never been introduced, and talks to him in a forest with her hair coming down. They find her afterwards floating in a pool. Not at all the thing one wants for one's daughter. JANE. Oh, but how thrilling it sounds! MRS. KNOWLE. Well, I think you are safer with "Jane," dear. Your mother knew what she was about. And if I can save my only child from floating in a pool by calling her Sandy, I certainly think it is my duty to do so. MELISANDE (to her self ecstatically). Melisande! MRS. KNOWLE (to MELISANDE). Oh, and talking about floating in a pool reminds me about the bread-sauce at dinner to-night. You heard what your father said? You must give cook a good talking to in the morning. She has been getting very careless lately. I don't know what's come over her. MELISANDE. _I've_ come over her. When _you_ were over her, everything was all right. You know all about housekeeping; you take an interest in it. I don't. I hate it. How can you expect the house to be run properly when they all know I hate it? Why did you ever give it up and make me do it when you know how I hate it? MRS. KNOWLE. Well, you must learn not to hate it. I'm sure Jane here doesn't hate it, and her mother is always telling me what a great help she is. MELISANDE (warningly). It's no good your saying you like it, Jane, after what you told me yesterday. JANE. I don't like it, but it doesn't make me miserable doing it. But then I'm different. I'm not romantic like Melisande.