MRS. KNOWLE. Thank you, Jane. Just here, please. (JANE arranges it.)
MRS. KNOWLE. Thank you, dear. I only do it for Dr. Anderson's sake.
(JANE goes back to her book and MELISANDE goes back to her Midsummer Night. There is silence for a little.)
MELISANDE (coming patiently down to them). Yes, Mother?
MRS. KNOWLE. Oh, Sandy, I've just remembered--(MELISANDE shudders.) What is it, darling child? Are you cold? That comes of standing by the open window in a treacherous climate like this. Close the window and come and sit down properly.
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.