“She must speak for herself,” replied her husband, smiling. “I thought at first she was neighbor Adams's Phœbe, but I see she is not.”
“What is your name, little girl?” asked the woman, while the three little girls looked wonderingly at the new-comer.
“Letitia Hopkins,” replied Letitia in a small, scared voice.
“Letitia Hopkins, did you say?” asked the woman doubtfully.
“Yes, ma'am.”
They all stared at her, then at one another.
“It is very strange,” said the woman finally, with a puzzled, half-alarmed look. “Letitia Hopkins is my name.”
“And it is mine, too,” said the eldest girl.
Letitia gave a great jump. There was something very strange about this. Letitia Hopkins was a family name. Her grandmother, her father's mother, had been Letitia Hopkins, and she had always heard that the name could be traced back in the same order for generations, as the Hopkinses had intermarried. She looked up, trembling, at the man who had saved her from the Indians.
“Will you please tell me your name, sir?” she said.