"Oh, I see; family name, I presume?" said the other.
"Yes," replied David Willis, "a family name. Good-night." And he went
inside, and sat down in the darkness to think about it.
CHAPTER II.
AND MAKES DISCOVERIES.
David Willis stuck to his determination, so suddenly made on that night
of the captain's visit, and the child was duly baptized under the name
of Comethup Willis. Simple David Willis chuckled to himself a little
over his ingenuity; he grew to like the quaintness of the name, and it
was a constant reminder--if such were necessary--of the tragedy which
belonged to the boy's birth. He always spoke the name rapidly when
addressing the child or when referring to it to any one else, slurring
the cumbrous name that he might hide the secret of it; only to himself
did he ever speak it slowly with the added words, "as a flower." It was
a never-ceasing source of joy to him to think how cleverly the name
had been conceived; he dwelt upon it lovingly, with the pride of the
inventor; and it became on his tongue a caress whenever it was uttered.
Apart from the mere name, the child filled his life and his thoughts to
a greater extent than he had ever even dared to hope. He grew rapidly,
and shook off the childish ailments which came with his years with
greater ease than most children; he had about him, even as a little
fellow, the grave, shy tenderness of his mother. Captain Garraway-Kyle
murmured once, as he held him at arms'-length and looked critically at
him, that he had his mother's eyes.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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