"Florence--"

"Oh," she exclaimed quickly, raising her polished hand with an
undeniable gesture of reproof, "you must not call me by my christian
name, Mr. Ho."

"Yet," replied this person, with a confessedly stubborn inelegance,
"you call me by the name of Ho."

Her eyes became ox-like in an utter absence of almond outline. "Yes,"
she said gazing, "but that--that is not your christian name, is it?"

"In a position of speaking--this one being as a matter of fact a
discreditable follower of the sublime Confucius--it may be so
regarded," I answered, "inasmuch as it is the milk-name of childhood."

"But you always put it last," she urged.

"Assuredly," I replied. "Being irrevocably born with the family name
of Kong, it is thought more reasonable that that should stand first.
After that, others are attached as the various contingencies demand
it, as Ho upon participating in the month-age feast, the book-name of
Tsin at a later period, Paik upon taking a degree, and so forth."

"I am very sorry, Mr. Kong," said the maiden, adding, with what at the
time certainly struck this person as shallow-witted prejudice. "Of
course it is really quite your own fault for being so tospy-turvily
arranged in every way. But, to return to the subject, why should not
one speak of one's heart?"