of Gypsy's room or Gypsy's toilet.




CHAPTER III

MISS MELVILLE'S VISITOR


As will be readily supposed, Gypsy's name was not her original one; though
it might have been, for there have been actual Billys and Sallys, who
began and ended Billys and Sallys only.

Gypsy's real name was an uncouth one--Jemima. It was partly for this
reason, partly for its singular appropriateness, that her nickname had
entirely transplanted the lawful and ugly one.

This subject of nicknames is a curiosity. All rules of euphony, fitness,
and common sense, that apply to other things, are utterly at fault here. A
baby who cannot talk plainly, dubs himself "Tuty," or "Dess," or "Pet," or
"Honey," and forthwith becomes Tuty, Dess, Pet, or Honey, the rest of his
mortal life. All the particularly cross and disagreeable girls are Birdies
and Sunbeams. All the brunettes with loud voices and red hands, who are
growing up into the "strong-minded women," are Lilies and Effies and
Angelinas, and other etherial creatures; while the little shallow,
pink-and-white young ladies who cry very often and "get nervous," are
quite as likely to be royal Constance, or Elizabeth, without any nickname
at all.