"Betty, can't you think of a name for me?" she asked deliberately, wondering what answer under the circumstances she would be apt to receive. "I know you and Polly have been reading a good deal in order to find new names to suggest to the girls, so haven't you come across a name that might be suitable for me? There are astrologers and fortune tellers who believe that one's good or evil fate depends on bearing an appropriate name and I have always hated mine."
"But it exactly suits you and doesn't make you ridiculous like my name does me!" Sylvia Wharton announced unexpectedly, breaking into the conversation for the first time during the evening in her dull, even tones. "What is really horrid is to have a name that suggests some one very beautiful and graceful--a name that sounds like water running over pebbles in a brook and then to look like I do. I wish everybody would call me Mary Jane! I would like to have a plain, homely name."
Such was the astonishment following Sylvia's protest that no one spoke for at least half a minute. Who could have supposed her capable of developing so much of an idea? For once in their acquaintance Polly (for of course Sylvia managed to be next her) laughed with the little girl instead of at her, at the same time taking the trouble to give one of her stiff flaxen braids an amused tug, while Miss McMurtry, in order to break the silence, went on talking about herself.
"Of course my name suits me, Sylvia, that is the worst of it," she laughed. "How can any one named Martha escape being a Martha? Oh, I presume the name taken by itself is a good old-fashioned one, but in combination with McMurtry it has such an old-maidy, school-teachery sound that I have been compelled to live up to it. Now, Betty, please make a suggestion."
Betty flushed and at the same time smiled to herself. The Indian name "Pokamp" or catbird had come to her mind shortly after her quarrel with Miss McMurtry during the afternoon. "Minerva," she now proposed faintly, "she was the Goddess of Wisdom."
"Gracious no, that is worse than Martha to live up to!" Miss McMurtry objected and also declined just as decisively the dignity of "Hypatia" and "Aspasia', when those learned ladies of ancient times were offered for her consideration.
"We might call you 'Our Lady Protector'; it is just another expression for guardian," Mollie O'Neill proposed uncertainly, not because she had any enthusiasm for her idea but because no one else had anything better to introduce, but before Miss McMurtry could answer, Polly's laugh had settled the proposition.
"Or we might call Miss Martha 'Chest Protector' or 'Bella Donna Plaster', which is a very soothing title, meaning 'Beautiful Lady Covering'," she teased. "Suppose, Miss Martha, that we just wait and perhaps follow the old Indian custom of choosing your name through a dream or the first object we see at an appointed time. But I must be allowed to bestow Mollie's new name upon her," she added, gazing sentimentally up into the sky and putting her arm apologetically about her sister, riot knowing how much she might have enjoyed being laughed at in public.
This time, however, it was Mollie who plainly scored, for she only laughed good humouredly saying: "Go ahead, Polly, you have arranged everything else for me in my life except my name and you only didn't do that at baptism because you were but a few weeks old!"
During the shouts of merriment, Polly, acknowledging her autocratic tendencies, could only hide her diminished head on her sister's shoulder; nevertheless, sitting up again a few moments later she pointed one hand in a dramatic fashion toward the heavens. "Only hear the name I have found for you and you will forgive me much, Mollie Mavourneen," she pleaded. "It is a part of our Camp Fire education to study the stars, isn't it? Well, see the Seven Brothers, the Great Bear family forming the Big Dipper in the northern sky. How many of us know that those stars were shot up there to escape the wrath of their terrible brother, Grizzly Bear, according to Indian astronomy. Now see that small star just at one side of the handle of the Dipper, known as 'Sinopa'. Don't you think we ought to call Mollie, 'Sinopa,' when it means 'Little Sister'?"