It was a very wise-like thing o' you to speir the woman's name." "But I didna." "You didna!" "He was in the water in a klink." Had Gavinia been in Corp's place she would have had the name out of Tommy, water or no water; but she did not tell her husband what she thought of him.
"Ay, of course," she said pleasantly.

"It was after you helped him out that he telled you her name." "Did he say he telled me her name ?" "He did." "Well, then, I've fair forgot it." Instead of boxing his ears she begged him to reflect.

Result of reflection, that if the name had been mentioned to Corp, which he doubted, it began with M.
Was it Mary?
That was the name.
Or was it Martha?
It had a taste of Martha about it.
It was not Margaret?
It might have been Margaret.
Or Matilda?
It was fell like Matilda.
And so on.

"But wi' a' your wheedling," Corp reminded his wife, bantering her from aloft, "you couldna get a scraping out o' me till I was free to speak." He thought it a good opportunity for showing Gavinia her place once and for all.

"In small matters," he said, "I gie you your ain way, for though you may be wrang, thinks I to mysel', 'She's but a woman'; but in important things, Gavinia, if I humoured you I would spoil you, so let this be a telling to you that there's no diddling a determined man"; to which she replied by informing the baby that he had a father to be proud of.
A father to be proud of! They were the words heard by Grizel as she entered.