"Names make news." Last week these names made this news:

In a black suit, black hat and silver fox fur, Mrs. Harry Payne Whitney swept into the chambers of a New York Supreme Court Justice in Manhattan. Trotting at her side was a spindly little girl of 10 who called her "Aunt Gertrude." In an outer room sat the little girl's mother, Mrs. Reginald Claypoole Vanderbilt. If Mrs. Whitney noticed that her brother "Reggie's" widow was also dressed in a black suit, black hat and silver fox fur, there was no glance to show it.

Thoroughly incensed was Mrs. Whitney. Her sister-in-law had taken a family squabble to court, practically accusing her of kidnapping her own niece, small Gloria Laura Morgan Vanderbilt.

On the Justice's desk lay Mrs. Vanderbilt's petition for a writ of habeas corpus to compel Mrs. Whitney to surrender Gloria. Week before, charged Mrs. Vanderbilt, "The child said she wanted to go to Central Park with her nurse to feed the pigeons. . . . Shortly thereafter she was spirited out of the house by said nurse, Emma Keislich, without being brought back to your petitioner to say goodby. . . . The nurse took the infant to Mrs. Whitney's home and the infant has been confined and detained there ever since against the will and consent of your petitioner."

Mrs. Whitney's lawyer was ready with his client's reply: "The respondent loves the child as one of her own children and for the past two years and more she has been a member of the family. . . . Her mother has rarely seen her and has had her overnight on only one occasion." According to Mrs. Whitney, Gloria, while on a visit to her mother last month, was told that she could not return to "Aunt Gertrude's" for a month. Thereupon Gloria developed a case of nervousness and hysteria which prompted her nurse to bring her to Mrs. Whitney's studio "in a highly excited and distraught condition, crying bitterly."

That Mrs. Vanderbilt had any legal right to her daughter Mrs. Whitney would not admit. When "Reggie" Vanderbilt died in 1925 his beauteous wife was but 20, too young to have legal custody of their baby. For ten years Mrs. Vanderbilt was content to let relatives worry over her daughter's upbringing. Three months ago she applied to be made Gloria's guardian. Mrs. Whitney countered with the charge that her sister-in-law was not a fit person to have her own daughter.

Besides her own affidavit last week Mrs. Whitney had others to prove her charge. One was from Gloria's portly Irish nurse, Emma Sullivan Keislich:

"Mrs. Vanderbilt endeavored to show Gloria how to make a cocktail and tried to force the child to drink orange juice although all liquids are forbidden by the doctor. . . . Gloria came to me and stated that she felt so unhappy at Mrs. Vanderbilt's that she would rather jump out of the window than stay there."

Upon the affidavit that bore the signature of Mrs. Vanderbilt's own mother. Mrs. Whitney relied most. Mrs. Laura Kilpatrick Morgan minced no words:

"We lived in Paris for four and a half years and during that period my daughter paid absolutely no attention to little Gloria. She devoted herself exclusively to her own gay pleasures.

"Usually she slept until 1 or 2 o'clock in the afternoon and from that time until the early hours of the following-morning she was at cocktail parties, dinners and night clubs. Her constant companions were people who lead a very gay life.

"During this time she was trying to dismiss the nurse that I engaged for her right after birth. I told her that little Gloria loved the nurse and would cry if she were discharged. My daughter said to me: I don't care if she cries and for all I care, she can bawl until her eyes bulge and drop out of their sockets.'

"My daughter once wanted to put little Gloria in an attic to make room for guests. The men and women servants lived in the attic. . . . During all this time, Gloria never went to school.

"I do not consider that it would be for little Gloria's best interests for me to go further into the unpleasant details about my daughter's life and associations. . . ."

Less backward about the unpleasant details of Mrs. Vanderbilt's life was Gloria's nurse. When the trial was transferred to open court Nurse Keislich told of peeking through a door with Mrs. Morgan one night at Biarritz, seeing Prince Friedrich von Hohenlohe in Mrs. Vanderbilt's bedroom. Concluded Nurse Keislich triumphantly: "He had on pajamas and she had on night clothes."

When Nurse Keislich showed eagerness to go on with the details, the presiding Justice reproved her. Said he: "My dear Madam, you have teeth in your mouth to clamp down on your tongue."

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