"Oh, well, dear, you needn't until you feel like it," he said.
"What am I going to call her, father ?" asked Maria, seriously.
"Oh, anything.

Call her Ida." "She is too old for me to call her that," replied Maria.
"Old?
Why, dear, Ida is only a girl." "She is a good deal over thirty," said Maria.

"I call that very old." "You won't, when you get there yourself," replied Harry, with another laugh.

"Well, dear, suit yourself.

Call her anything you like." It ended by Maria never calling her anything except "you," and referring to her as "she" and "her." The woman, in fact, became a pronoun for the child, who in her honesty and loyalty could never put another word in the place which had belonged to the noun, and feel satisfied.
Maria was very docile, outwardly, in those days, but inside she was in a tumult of rebellion.