The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 07, No. 41, March, 1861

And Lonicera was the infant's name."

He stopped reading just here, to look at the evening paper, which had been brought in. I read something in it, and then we all went to sit on the piazza, with the street-lamp shining through the bitter-sweet vine, as good as the moon, and the conversation naturally and easily turned on odd names. I told what I had read in the paper: that our country rivalled Dickens's in queer names, and that it wasn't for a land that had Boggs and Bigger and Bragg for governors, and Stubbs, Snoggles, Scroggs, and Pugh among its respectable citizens, to accuse Dickens of caricature. I turned, a little tremulously, I confess, to "him," saying,—

"If you had been so unfortunate as to have for a name Darius Snoggles, now, for instance, wouldn't you have it changed by the Legislature?"

I shivered with anxiety.

"Certainly not," he replied, with perfect unconsciousness. "Whatever my name might be, I would endeavor to make it a respectable one while I bore it."

Laura sat the other side of me, and softly touched me. So I only asked, if that great star up there was Lyra; but all the time Anodyne, Ambergris, Abner, Albion, Alpheus, and all the names that begin with A, rolled through my memory monotonously and continually.

After we went up-stairs that night, and while I was trying in vain to do up my hair so as to make a natural wave in front, (sometimes everything goes wrong,) Laura said,—

"Delphine!"

My mother mixed romance with good practical sense, and very properly said that girls with good names and tolerable faces might get on in the world, but it took fortune to make your Sallies and Mollies go down. She had good taste, too, and didn't name either of us Louisa Prudence, like an unfortunate I once saw; and we were left, with our nice cottage covered with its vine of bitter-sweet and climbing rose, fifteen hundred dollars each, and our names, Delphine and Laura. Not a bad heritage, with economy, good looks, and hearts to take life cheerily. Still it is plain enough that a fifty-dollar note for the bride was not to be despised nor overlooked. In fact, with the exception of Polly's present of a brown earthen bowl and a pudding-stick, it was the first approach to a wedding-gift that I had yet received. And this note was trouble the second. But of that, by-and-by.

"Delphine!" said Laura, softly.

Some people's voices excoriate you, Laura's was soft and soothing.

"Well!"

"Don't say any more to—to Mr. Sampson about names."

"Oh, dear! hateful!"

"Delphine, be thankful it's no worse!"

"How could it be worse,—unless it were Hog-and-Hominy? I never knew anything so utterly ridiculous! America! Columbia! Yankee-Doodle! I'd rather it had been Abraham!"

All this I almost shouted in a passion of vexation, and Laura hastily closed the window.

"Let me loosen your braids for you, Del," said she, quietly, taking up my hair in her gentle way, which always had a good effect on my prancing nerves; "let me bathe your forehead with this, dear;—now, let me tell you something you will like."

"Oh, my heart! Laura, I wish you could! for I declare to you, that, if it wasn't for—if it didn't–Oh, dear, dear! how I do hate that name!"

"It is not so very good a name,—that must be owned, Del. All is, you will have to call him 'Mr. Sampson,' or 'My dear,' or 'You'; or, stay, you might abbreviate it into Ame, Ami. Ami and Delphine!—it sounds like a French story for youth. If I were you, I wouldn't meddle with it or think any more about it."

"Such a name! so ridiculous!" I muttered.

"You have considered it so much and so closely, Del, that it is most disproportionately prominent in your mind. You can put out Bunker-Hill Monument with your little finger, if you hold it close enough to your eye. Don't you remember what Mr. Sampson said to-night about somebody whose mind had no perspective in it? that his shoe-ribbon was as prominent and important as his soul? Don't go and be a goosey, Del, and have no perspective, will you?" And Laura leaned over and kissed my forehead, all corrugated with my pet grief.

"Well, Laura, what can be worse? I declare—almost I think, Laura, I would rather he should have some great defect."

"Moral or physical? Gambling? one leg? one eye? lying? six fingers? How do you mean, Del?"

"Oh, patience! no, indeed!—six fingers! I only meant"–

And here, of course, I stopped.

"Which virtue could you spare in Mr. Sampson?" said Laura, coolly, fastening my hair neatly in its net, and sitting down in her rocking-chair.

When it came to that, of course there were none to be spared. We undressed, silently,—Laura rolling all her ribbons carefully, and I throwing mine about; Laura, consistent, conservative, allopathic, High-Church,—I, homoeopathic, hydropathic, careless, and given to Parkerism. It did not matter, as to harmony. Two bracelets, but no need to be alike. We clasped arms and hearts all the same. By-and-by I remembered,—

"Oh! what's your good news, Laura?"

"Ariana Cooper and Geraldine Parker are both married,—both on the same day, at Grace Church, New York."

"Is it possible? Who told you? How do you know?"

"I read it in the 'Evening Post,' just before I came up-stairs. Now guess,—guess a month, Del, and you won't guess whom they have married."

"No use to guess. They've found somebody in New York at their aunt's, I suppose. Both so pretty and rich, they were likely to find good partis."

"Merchants both, I think. Now do guess!"

"How can I? Herbert Clark, maybe,—or Captain Ellington? No, of course not. A merchant? Julius Winthrop. I know Ariana was a great admirer of a military man. She used to say she would have loved Sidney for his chivalry, and Raleigh for his graceful foppery; and Pembroke Dunkin she admired for both. It isn't Pembroke?"

And here I sighed over and over, like a foolish virgin.

"Now, then, listen. Here it is in the paper," said Laura.

"'Married, at Grace Church, by the Rev. So-and-So, assisted, etc., etc., Ossian Smutt, Esq., of the firm of S. Hamilton & Company, to Ariana, eldest daughter of the late George S. Cooper. At the same place, and day, Hon. Unity Smith, M.C., to Geraldine Miranda, daughter of the late Russell Parker of Pine Lodge. The happy quartette have left in the Persia for a tour in Europe. We wish them joy.'"

"Ugh! Laura! goodness! well, that outdoes me," I screamed, with a sudden sense of relief, that set me laughing as passionately as I had been crying. For, though I have not before owned it, I had been crying heartily.

The Balm of a Thousand Flowers descended on my lacerated heart. To say the truth, I had dreaded more Ariana's little shrug, and Geraldine Parker's upraised eyebrows, on reading my marriage, than a whole life of that name, on my own account merely. But now, thank Heaven, so much trouble was out of my way. Mrs. Unity Smith, and Mrs. Orlando—no, Ossian Smutt, could by no possibility laugh at me. Mrs. A. Sampson wasn't bad on a card. It would not smut one, anyhow. I laughed grimly, and composed myself to sleep.

The next morning had come the pleasant letter from my Albany aunt, with the fifty-dollar note. Laura continued rocking, fifty strokes a minute, and stitching at the rate of sixty. I held the note idly, rubbing up my imagination for things new and old. Laura, being industrious, was virtuously employing her thoughts. As idleness brings mischief, and riches anxiety, I did not rock long without evil consequences. Eve herself was not contented in Eden. She had to do all the cooking, for one thing,—and angels always happening in to dinner! For my part, the name of Adam would have been enough to spoil my pleasure. Here Laura interrupted my thoughts, which were running headlong into everything wicked.

"What do you say?"

"What do you?" I answered; for, like other bad people, I had the greatest respect for good people's opinions.

"I think—a small—silver salver!"

"Do you think so, really?"

"Yes, Del. That will be good; silver, you know, is always good to have; and it will be handsome and useful always."

"What! for us?"

"Yes,—pretty to hand a cup of tea on, or a glass of wine,—pretty to set in the middle of a long table with a vase of flowers on it, when you have the Court and High-Sheriff to dine,—as you will, of course, every year,—or with your spoon-goblet. Oh, there are plenty of ways to make a small silver salver useful. Mrs. Harris says she doesn't see how any one can keep house without a silver salver."

The last sentence she said with a laugh, for she knew I thought so much of what Mrs. Harris said.

"We've kept house all our lives without one, Laura."