“I didn’t think of asking that either, and nobody knew anything of them. I suppose he was not in the frame of mind to think of such things himself. It was all over and done with so soon. He went away as soon as she was buried.”
Mrs. Rutherford sank back into her chair.
“It’s the strangest story I ever heard of in my life,” she commented, with a sigh of amazement. “The man must have been crazed with grief. I suppose he was very fond of his wife?”
“I suppose so,” said Tom.
There was another pause of a few moments, and from the thoughts with which they occupied it Mrs. Rutherford roused herself with a visible effort.
“Well,” she said, cheerily, “let it be a pretty name.”
“Yes,” answered Tom, “it must be a pretty one.”
He turned the bit of honeysuckle so that the moonlight fell on its faintly tinted flower. It really seemed as if he felt he should get on better for having it to look at and refer to.
“I want it to be a pretty name,” he went on, “and I’ve thought of a good many that sounded well enough, but none of them seemed exactly to hit my fancy in the right way until I thought of one that came into my mind a few moments ago as I sat here. It has a pleasant meaning—I don’t know that there’s anything in that, of course; but I’ve got a sort of whim about it. I suppose it’s a whim. What do you think—” looking very hard at the honeysuckle, “of Felicia?”
“I think,” said his companion, “that it is likely to be the best name you could give her, for if she isn’t a happy creature it won’t be your fault.”