The caress was such an unusual experience that Miss Selina forgot to wince or complain, and before she did remember, Ruth was bubbling over with news.
"What do you think is to happen to-day?--Oh! Aunt Selina, we all have new names at home; even mother is now called Mother Wings and I am Fluff. The other Blue Birds have names they chose for themselves, and Ned is an Owl, and prints our weekly paper called the _Chirp_. Now, instead of Aunt Selina, I want to call you a bird-name, too. May I?"
Aunt Selina smiled sympathetically at Ruth's words, but, recalled to her condition by a twinge of pain, she moaned, "Child, poor old Aunt Selina would make a wretched specimen of a bird nowadays. The only kind I feel that I could represent truly is a raven--for it always croaks."
Ruth laughed consolingly, but cried, "Oh, Aunt Selina, that is just because you feel blue with those old rheumatics. Mother says we always look at life through dark spectacles when we're in pain, and we b'lieve the lovely world has lost all its brightness. Now, I've come to make you forget your blues and I _must_ have a new name to say, because there is so _much_ to tell you that I would lose time if I had to say 'Aunt Selina' every time. Besides, a new name will make you forget yourself."
"What could you call me?" questioned her aunt, trying to fall in with the child's whim.
"We'll have to think! It isn't as easy as it may sound to find a name to suit. We had a dreadful hard time to do it."
"'Fluff' suits you beautifully. Who found it?" said the old lady interestedly.
"I chose two, but we can only have one. One was 'Flutey' the other 'Fluff'; Ned and the Blue Birds liked 'Fluff' best, and they have called me by that name ever since we were christened in the Nest."
"When I was a little girl like you I used to enjoy whistling about the place so much that father called me his little flute. I can still see the shocked expression of my aunt who visited us, when she heard me running about whistling like a boy. She was a grand dame of society in New York, and _her_ girls were doing embroidery and being taught how to curtsey and behave in the drawing-room." And Miss Selina smiled at Ruth who fully understood the remark and clapped her hands delightedly at her aunt who had been a hoyden so long ago.