Evidently not a touch of help was to be had from him. What were they to talk about during that five miles of travel over a rough road? Ruth studied her brains to try to develop a subject that would not make them even more uncomfortable than they now felt. She was unfortunate in selection, but it seemed impossible to get away from the thoughts which were just now so prominently before them. She suddenly remembered a fact which surprised her, and to which she gave instant expression.
“Judge Burnham, what are your daughter’s names?”
The gentleman thus addressed wrinkled his forehead into a dozen frowns, and shook himself, as though he would like to shake away all remembrance of the subject, before he said:
“Their very names are a source of mortification to me. The elder is Seraphina and the other Araminta. What do you think of them?”
Ruth was silent and dismayed. This apparently trivial circumstance served to show her what a strange state of things existed in the home whither she was going. She didn’t know how to answer her husband’s question. She was sorry that she had asked any. There seemed no way out but to ask another, which, in truth, pressed upon her.
“How do you soften such names? What do you call them when you address them?”
“I call them nothing. I know of no way of smoothing such hopeless cognomens, and I take refuge in silence, or bewildering pronouns.”
Ruth pondered over this answer long enough to have her courage rise and to grow almost indignant. Then she spoke again:
“But, Judge Burnham, I do not see how you could have allowed so strange a selection for girls in this age of the world. Why didn’t you save them from such a life-long infliction? Or, was there some reason for the use of these names that dignifies them—that makes them sacred?”