WHAT SHALL WE CALL IT ?

“And now what shall we call it?” Norah asked.

“Call it?” echoed Marion.

They sat on the rocks beside a mountain stream that filled the air with its delicious murmur.

“Certainly, everything has to have a name. Shall it be Carpenter and Pennington, Dry-goods?”

Marion removed the dark glasses she wore, turning a pair of serious eyes upon her companion. “How absurd,” she said.

“No,” insisted Norah, taking the glasses and adjusting them on her own nose, “not at all. It is businesslike. Can’t you see it? a large black sign with gilt letters.”

“Give me my glasses, and don’t be silly. It is not to be a dry-goods’ store in the first place, and above all things let us be original. If such signs are customary, ours must be different.”

“Here speaks wisdom. Here the instinct of the born advertiser betrays itself. Let us think.” Norah buried her face in her hands.

Marion watched her with a half smile, then as an expression of weariness stole into her face she restored the glasses and sighed, as with her elbow supported on a ledge of rock she rested her chin in her palm and looked down on the swift running water. She was extremely slender, and it was easy to guess she was also tall, and that, seen at her best, she was a person of grace and elegance rather than beauty.

“I have it,” Norah cried presently. “The Pleasant Street Shop.”

“Or The Neighborhood Shop,” Marion suggested.

“No, let us have Pleasant Street in it. It seems a good omen that the street is called Pleasant.”

Marion smiled. “Have you told Dr. Baird?” she asked.

“Yes. He said I should be a novelist, and confine my wild-goose schemes to paper.”

“The Notions of Norah would be a taking title,” laughed Marion, the weariness gone from her face.

“But as I told him, ‘Deeds, not Dreams,’ is my motto, and I’ll show him if it is a wild-goose scheme. I am convinced that deep down in his heart he was interested; and although he made no promises, I believe we may count on him.”