Page:Middle Aged Love Stories (IA middleagedlove00bacorich).djvu/238



Their cold horror, briefly expressed, had shown her that she had trespassed too far on their indulgence, and she spoke of it no more, but the memory rankled.

“It’s so strange you don’t see how cunning it is,” Carolyn complained; “everybody does it now. The whole Chatworth family have those names, Aunt Ju, and it is the dearest thing to hear the old doctor call Captain Arthur ‘Ga-ga.’ You know that dignified sister with the lovely silvery hair? Well, they all call her ‘Looty.’ And nobody thinks of Hunter Chatworth’s real name—he’s always ‘Toto.’”

“And he has three children!”

Miss Trueman sighed; the constitution of the modern family amazed her endlessly. Ga-ga, indeed!

“Do the children call him Toto, too?” she demanded, with an attempt at sarcasm, a conversational form to which she was by nature a stranger.