“By-and-by I will tell you all about it,—­certainly I will.  I must tell you some time, but not to-night.”

“And—­I had thought to keep a secret from you, to-night, Del; but, on the whole, I shall feel better to tell you.”

“Yes,—­perhaps,—­perhaps.”

“Oh, yes!  Secrets are safest, told.  First, then, Del, I will tell you this secret.  I am very foolish.  Don’t tell of it, will you?  See here!”

He held up his closed hand before my face, laughingly.

That man’s name, Del, is Drake”——­

“And not the Devil!” said I to myself.

“Solitude Drake.”

“Really?  Is that it, truly?  What’s in your hand?”

“Truly,—­really.  He lives in Albany.  He is the son of a queer man, and is something of a humorist himself.  I have seen one of his sons.  He has two.  One’s name is Paraclete, and the other Preserved.  His daughter is pretty, very, and her name is Deliverance.  They call her Del, for short.  They do, on my word!  Worse than Delphine, is it not?”

“Why, don’t you like my name?” stammered I, with astonishment.

“Yes, very well.  I don’t care much about names.  But I can tell you, Uncle Zabdiel and Aunt Jerusha, ‘from whom I have expectations,’ Del, think it is ’just about the poorest kind of a name that ever a girl had.’  And our Cousin Abijah thought you were named Delilah, and that it was a good match for Sampson!  I rectified him there; but he still insists on your being called ‘Finy,’ in the family, to distinguish you from the Midianitish woman.”

“And so Uncle Zabdiel thinks I have a poor name?” said I, laughing heartily.  “The shield looks neither gold nor silver, from which side soever we gaze.  But I think he might put up with my name!”

My husband never knew exactly what I was laughing at.  And why should he?  I was fast overcoming my weakness about names, and thinking they were nothing, compared to things, after all.

When our laugh (for his was sympathetic) had subsided into a quiet cheerfulness, he said, again holding up his hand,—­

“Not at all curious, Del?  You don’t ask what Mr. Solitude Drake wanted?”

“I don’t think I care what he wanted:  company, I suppose.”

And I went on making bad puns about solitude sweetened, and ducks and drakes, as happy people do, whose hearts are quite at ease.

“And you don’t want to know at all, Del?” said he, laughing a little nervously, and dropping from his hand an open paper into mine.  “It shall be my wedding-present to you.  It is Mr. Drake’s retainer.  Pretty stout one, is it not?  This is what made me jump out of the window,—­this and one other thing.”

“Why, this is a draft for five hundred dollars!” said I, reading and staring stupidly at the paper.

“Yes, and I am retained in that great Albany land-case.  It involves millions of property.  That is all, Del.  But I was so glad, so happy, that I was likely to do well at last, and that I could gratify all the wishes, reasonable and unreasonable, of my darling!”