Lydia

Lydia was exceedingly fond of him.

Lydia is the swashbuckling heroine of this adventure novel.

Mama and cousin Eve often wax nostalgic about Roman Catholicism, evident when we have pasta meals at home. They are both converts to Protestantism. My late father Frank (or Jun) was the pioneer in my extended family, largely Roman Catholic, for conversion. Also, my paternal grandmother Lydia followed. My maternal grandfather Macario was already a Protestant of the United Church of Christ. He read literature from Baptists under Papa's influence. My Roman Catholic maternal grandmother Bebe was happy-go-lucky and couldn't care less about these things. My paternal grandfather Pito (Francisco) listened to Papa's witnessing and was proselytized to even at the death bed, when he died in his seventies.

Lydia can't be happy unless everyone conforms to her worldview.

And a certain woman named Lydia, a seller of purple, of the city of Thyatira, which worshipped God, heard us: whose heart the Lord opened, that she attended unto the things which were spoken of Paul.

Lydia was a stout, well-grown girl of fifteen, with a fine complexion and good-humoured countenance; a favourite with her mother, whose affection had brought her into public at an early age.

The first three, Macklin, Lydia, and Randall, were the special ones. Even those names, we thought, showed greater imagination, greater involvement on our parents' part, than ours did: Nina, Mary, Sarah.