look among those young faces, wondering which is the poor child she
brought into this forlorn world, never through all its life to know
her love, her kiss, her face, her voice, even her name!" Now that
was practical in Mother, and I told her so. I said, "Mother,
that's what I call practical in you, my dear."'

The other, not unmoved, assented.

'So I said next day: Now, Mother, I have a proposition to make that
I think you'll approve of. Let us take one of those same little
children to be a little maid to Pet. We are practical people. So
if we should find her temper a little defective, or any of her ways
a little wide of ours, we shall know what we have to take into
account. We shall know what an immense deduction must be made from
all the influences and experiences that have formed us--no parents,
no child-brother or sister, no individuality of home, no Glass
Slipper, or Fairy Godmother. And that's the way we came by
Tattycoram.'

'And the name itself--'

'By George!' said Mr Meagles, 'I was forgetting the name itself.
Why, she was called in the Institution, Harriet Beadle--an
arbitrary name, of course. Now, Harriet we changed into Hattey,
and then into Tatty, because, as practical people, we thought even
a playful name might be a new thing to her, and might have a
softening and affectionate kind of effect, don't you see? As to
Beadle, that I needn't say was wholly out of the question. If
there is anything that is not to be tolerated on any terms,
anything that is a type of Jack-in-office insolence and absurdity,