or gay in after-life, wanton or pious or sullen, comely or otherwise,
there will be no possible chance of incongruity; whether she develop a
taste for winter-gardens or the higher mathematics, whether she take
to golf or clinging organdies, the event is provided for. One has only
to consider for a moment, and if among a choice of Madge, Marjorie,
Meta, Maggie, Margherita, Peggy, and Gretchen, and countless
others--if among all these he cannot find a name that suits her to a
T--why, then, the case is indeed desperate and he may permissibly
fall back upon Madam or--if the cat jump propitiously, and at his own
peril--on Darling or Sweetheart.

The second proof that this name must be the best of all possible names
is that Margaret Hugonin bore it. And so the murder is out. You may
suspect what you choose. I warn you in advance that I have no part
whatever in her story; and if my admiration for her given name appear
somewhat excessive, I can only protest that in this dissentient world
every one has a right to his own taste. I knew Margaret. I admired
her. And if in some unguarded moment I may have carried my admiration
to the point of indiscretion, her husband most assuredly knows all
about it, by this, and he and I are still the best of friends. So you
perceive that if I ever did so far forget myself it could scarcely
have amounted to a hanging matter.

I am doubly sure that Margaret Hugonin was beautiful, for the reason
that I have never found a woman under forty-five who shared my
opinion. If you clap a Testament into my hand, I cannot affirm that
women are eager to recognise beauty in one another; at the utmost they
concede that this or that particular feature is well enough. But when
a woman is clean-eyed and straight-limbed, and has a cheery heart,
she really cannot help being beautiful; and when Nature accords her