White Lilac | Page 2

cry. The baby was awake. Very soon she was in Mrs Leigh's arms, who examined the tiny face with great interest, while the mother stood by, silent, but eager for the first expression of admiration.
"What a beautifully fair child!" exclaimed Mrs Leigh.
"Everyone says that as sees her," said Mrs White with quiet triumph. "She features my mother's family--they all had such wonderful white skins. But," anxiously, "you don't think she looks weakly, do you, ma'am?"
"Oh, no," answered Mrs Leigh in rather a doubtful tone. She stood up and weighed the child in her arms, moving nearer the window. "She's a little thing, but I dare say she's not the less strong for that."
"It makes me naturally a bit fearsome over her," said Mrs White; "for, as you know, ma'am, I've buried three children since we've bin here. Ne'er a one of 'em all left me. It seems when I look at this little un as how I must keep her. I don't seem as if I could let her go too."
"Oh, she'll grow up and be a comfort to you, I don't doubt," said Mrs Leigh cheerfully. "Fair-complexioned children are very often wonderfully healthy and strong. But really," she continued, looking closely at the baby's face, "I never saw such a skin in my life. Why, she's as white as milk, or snow, or a lily, or--" She paused for a comparison, and suddenly added, as her eye fell on the flowers, "or that bunch of lilac."
"You're right, ma'am," agreed Mrs White with a smile of intense gratification.
"And if I were you," continued Mrs Leigh, her good-natured face beaming all over with a happy idea, "I should call her `Lilac'. That would be a beautiful name for her. Lilac White. Nothing could be better; it seems made for her."
Mrs White's expression changed to one of grave doubt.
"It do seem as how it would fit her," she said; "but that's not a Christian name, is it, ma'am?"
"Well, it would make it one if you had her christened so, you see."
"I was thinking of making so bold as to call her `Annie', and to ask you to stand for her, ma'am."
"And so I will, with pleasure. But don't call her Annie; we've got so many Annies in the parish already it's quite confusing--and so many Whites too. We should have to say `Annie White on the hill' every time we spoke of her. I'm always mixing them up as it is. Don't call her Annie, Mrs White, Lilac's far better. Ask your husband what he thinks of it."
"Oh! Jem, he'll think as I do, ma'am," said Mrs White at once; "it isn't Jem."
"Who is it, then? If you both like the name it can't matter to anyone else."
"Well, ma'am," said Mrs White hesitatingly, as she took her child from Mrs Leigh, and rocked it gently in her arms, "they'll all say down below in the village, as how it's a fancy sort of a name, and maybe when she grows up they'll laugh at her for it. I shouldn't like to feel as how I'd given her a name to be made game of."
But Mrs Leigh was much too pleased with her fancy to give it up, and she smilingly overcame this objection and all others. It was a pretty, simple, and modest-sounding name, she said, with nothing in it that could be made laughable. It was short to say, and above all it had the advantage of being uncommon; as it was, so many mothers had desired the honour of naming their daughters after the rector's wife, that the number of "Annies" was overwhelming, but there certainly would not be two "Lilac Whites" in the village. In short, as Mrs White told Jem that evening, Mrs Leigh was "that set" on the name that she had to give in to her. And so it was settled; and wonderfully soon afterwards it was rumoured in the village that Mrs James White on the hill meant to call her baby "Lilac."
This could not matter to anyone else, Mrs Leigh had said, but she was mistaken. Every mother in the parish had her opinion to offer, for there were not so many things happening, that even the very smallest could be passed over without a proper amount of discussion when neighbours met. On the whole they were not favourable opinions. It was felt that Mrs White, who had always held herself high and been severe on the follies of her friends, had now in her turn laid herself open to remark by choosing an outlandish and fanciful name for her child. Lilies, Roses, and even Violets were not unknown in Danecross, but who had ever heard of Lilac?
Mrs Greenways said so, and she had a right to speak, not only because she lived at