As it was not very likely that the parents who left their offspring round on doorsteps were of saintly life, they were not presented for baptism like the children of church-members.  Still, they must have names to be known by, and Mrs. Hopkins was much exercised in the matter.  Like many New England parents, she had a decided taste for names that were significant and sonorous.  That which she had chosen for her oldest child, the young poet, was either a remarkable prophecy, or it had brought with it the endowments it promised.  She had lost, or, in her own more pictorial language, she had buried, a daughter to whom she had given the names, at once of cheerful omen and melodious effect, Wealthy Amadora.

As for them poor little creturs, she said, she believed they was rained down out o’ the skies, jest as they say toads and tadpoles come.  She meant to be a mother to ’em for all that, and give ’em jest as good names as if they was the governor’s children, or the minister’s.  If Mr. Gridley would be so good as to find her some kind of a real handsome Chris’n name for ’em, she’d provide ’em with the other one.  Hopkinses they shall be bred and taught, and Hopkinses they shall be called.  Ef their father and mother was ashamed to own ’em, she was n’t.  Couldn’t Mr. Gridley pick out some pooty sounding names from some of them great books of his.  It’s jest as well to have ’em pooty as long as they don’t cost any more than if they was Tom and Sally.

A grim smile passed over the rugged features of Byles Gridley.  “Nothing is easier than that, Mrs. Hopkins,” he said.  “I will give you two very pretty names that I think will please you and other folks.  They’re new names, too.  If they shouldn’t like to keep them, they can change them before they’re christened, if they ever are.  Isosceles will be just the name for the boy, and I’m sure you won’t find a prettier name for the girl in a hurry than Helminthia.”

Mrs. Hopkins was delighted with the dignity and novelty of these two names, which were forthwith adopted.  As they were rather long for common use in the family, they were shortened into the easier forms of Sossy and Minthy, under which designation the babes began very soon to thrive mightily, turning bread and milk into the substance of little sinners at a great rate, and growing as if they were put out at compound interest.

This short episode shows us the family conditions surrounding Byles Gridley, who, as we were saying, had just been called down to tea by Miss Susan Posey.

“I am coming, my dear,” he said,—­which expression quite touched Miss Susan, who did not know that it was a kind of transferred caress from the delicious page he was reading.  It was not the living child that was kissed, but the dead one lying under the snow, if we may make a trivial use of a very sweet and tender thought we all remember.