University of Virginia Library

2. PART II

"SHE never even asked who it was," Amelia reported to her sisters, when she had returned to the house. "Because she knew," replied Sophia, sagely; "there has never been any old friend but that one old friend to come back into Eudora Yates's life."

"Has he come back into her life, I wonder?" said Amelia.

"What did he return to Wellwood for if he didn't come for that? All his relatives are gone. He never married. Yes, he has come back to see Eudora and marry her, if she will have him. No man who ever loved Eudora would ever get over loving

her. And he will not be shocked when he sees her. She is no more changed than a beautiful old statue."

"He is changed, though," said Amelia. "I saw him the other day. He didn't see me, and I would hardly have known him. He has grown stout, and his hair is gray."

"Eudora's hair is gray," said Sophia.

"Yes, but you can see the gold through Eudora's gray. It just looks as if a shadow was thrown over it. It doesn't change her. Harry Lawton's gray hair does change him."

"If," said Anna, sentimentally, "Eudora thinks Harry's hair turned gray for love of her, you can trust her or any woman to see the gold through it."

"Harry's hair was never gold — just an ordinary brown," said Amelia.

"Anyway, the Lawtons turned gray young."

"She won't think of that at all," said Sophia.

"I wonder why Eudora always avoided him so, years ago," said Amelia.

"Why doesn't a girl in a field of daisies stop to pick one, which she never forgets?" said Sophia. "Eudora had so many chances, and I don't think her heart was fixed when she was very young; at least, I don't think it was fixed so she knew it."

"I wonder," said Amelia, "if he will go and call on her."

Amelia privately wished that she lived near enough to know if Harry Lawton did call. She, as well as Mrs. Joseph Glynn, would have enjoyed watching out and knowing something

of the village happenings, but the Lancaster house was situated so far from the road, behind its grove of trees, that nothing whatever could be seen.

"I doubt if Eudora tells, if he does call—that is, not unless something definite happens," said Anna.

"No," remarked Amelia, sadly. "Eudora is a dear, but she is very silent with regard to her own affairs."

"She ought to be," said Sophia, with her married authority. She was, to her sisters, as one who had passed within the shrine and was dignifiedly silent with regard to its intimate mysteries.

"I suppose so," assented Anna, with a soft sigh. Amelia sighed also. Then she took the tea-tray out of the

room. She had to make some biscuits for supper.

Meantime Eudora was pacing homeward with the baby-carriage. Her serene face was a little perturbed. Her oval cheeks were flushed, and her mouth now and then trembled. She had, if she followed her usual course, to pass the Wellwood Inn, but she could diverge, and by taking a side street and walking a half-mile farther reach home without coming in sight of the inn. She did so to-day.

When she reached the side street she turned rather swiftly and gave a little sigh of relief. She was afraid that she might meet Harry Lawton. It was a lonely way. There was a brook on one side, bordered thickly with bushy willows which were turning gold-green. On the other side

were undulating pasture-lands on which grazed a few sheep. There were no houses until she reached the turn which would lead back to the main street, on which her home was located.

Eudora was about midway of this street when she saw a man approaching. He was a large man clad in gray, and he was swinging an umbrella. Somehow the swing of that umbrella, even from a distance, gave an impression of embarrassment and boyish hesitation. Eudora did not know him at first. She had expected to see the same Harry Lawton who had gone away. She did not expect to see a stout, middle-aged man, but a slim youth.

However, as they drew nearer each other, she knew; and curiously enough

it was that swing of the tightly furled umbrella which gave her the clue. She knew Harry because of that. It was a little boyish trick which had survived time. It was too late for her to draw back, for he had seen her, and Eudora was keenly alive to the indignity of abruptly turning and scuttling away with the tail of her black silk swishing, her India shawl trailing, and the baby-carriage bumping over the furrows. She continued, and Harry Lawton continued, and they met.

Harry Lawton had known Eudora at once. She looked the same to him as when she had been a girl, and he looked the same to her when he spoke.

"Hullo, Eudora," said Harry Lawton, in a ludicrously boyish fashion.

His face flushed, too, like a boy. He extended his hand like a boy. The man, seen near at hand, was a boy. In reality he himself had not changed. A few layers of flesh and a change of color-cells do not make another man. He had always been a simple, sincere, friendly soul, beloved of men and women alike, and he was that now. Eudora held out her hand, and her eyes fell before the eyes of the man, in an absurd fashion for such a stately creature as she. But the man himself acted like a great happy overgrown school-boy.

"Hullo, Eudora," he said again.

"Hullo," said she, falteringly.

It was inconceivable that they should meet in such wise after the years of separation and longing which they had both undergone; but each

took refuge, as it were, in a long-past youth, even childhood, from the fierce tension of age. When they were both children they had been accustomed to pass each other on the village street with exactly such salutation, and now both reverted to it. The tall, regal woman in her India shawl and the stout, middle-aged man had both stepped back to their vantage-ground of springtime to meet.

However, after a moment, Eudora reasserted herself. "I only heard a short time ago that you were here," she said, in her usual even voice. The fair oval of her face was as serene and proud toward the man as the face of the moon.

The man swung his umbrella, then began prodding the ground with it. "Hullo, Eudora," he said again; then

he added: "How are you, anyway? Fine and well?"

"I am very well, thank you," said Eudora. "So you have come home to Wellwood after all this time?"

The man made an effort and recovered himself, although his handsome face was burning.

"Yes," he remarked, with considerable ease and dignity, to which he had a right, for Harry Lawton had not made a failure of his life, even though it had not included Eudora and a fulfilled dream.

"Yes," he continued, "I had some leisure; in fact, I have this spring retired from business; and I thought I would have a look at the old place. Very little changed I am happy to find it."

"Yes, it is very little changed,"

assented Eudora; "at least, it seems so to me, but it is not for a life-long dweller in any place to judge of change. It is for the one who goes and returns after many years."

There was a faint hint of proud sadness in Eudora's voice as she spoke the last two words.

"It has been many years," said Lawton, gravely, "and I wonder if it has seemed so to you."

Eudora held her head proudly. "Time passes swiftly," said she, tritely.

"But sometimes it may seem long in the passing, however swift," said Lawton, "though I suppose it has not to you. You look just the same," he added, regarding her admiringly.

Eudora flushed a little. "I must be changed," she murmured.

"Not a bit. I would have known you anywhere. But I —"

"I knew you the minute you spoke."

"Did you?" he asked, eagerly. "I was afraid I had grown so stout you would not remember me at all. Queer how a man will grow stout. I am not such a big eater, either, and I have worked hard, and — well, I might have been worse off, but I must say I have seen men who seemed to me happier, though I have made the best of things. I always did despise a flunk. But you! I heard you had adopted a baby," he said, with a sudden glance at the blue and white bundle in the carriage, "and I thought you were mighty sensible. When people grow old they want young people growing around them, staffs for old

age, you know, and all that sort of thing. Don't know but I should have adopted a boy myself if it hadn't been for —"

The man stopped, and his face was pink. Eudora turned her face slightly away.

"By the way," said the man, in a suddenly hushed voice, "I suppose the kid you've got there is asleep. Wouldn't do to wake him?"

"I think I had better not," replied Eudora, in a hesitating voice. She began to walk along, and Harry Lawton fell into step beside her.

"I suppose it isn't best to wake up babies; makes them cross, and they cry," he said. "Say, Eudora, is he much trouble?"

"Very little," replied Eudora, still in that strange voice.

"Doesn't keep you awake nights?"

"Oh no."

"Because if he does, I really think you should have a nurse. I don't think you ought to lose sleep taking care of him."

"I do not."

"Well, I was mighty glad when I heard you had adopted him. I suppose you made sure about his parentage, where he hailed from and what sort of people?"

"Oh yes." Eudora was very pale.

"That's right. Maybe some time you will tell me all about it. I am coming over Thursday to have a look at the youngster. I have to go to the city on business to-morrow and can't get back until Thursday. I was coming over to-night to call on you, but I have a man coming to the inn this

evening — he called me up on the telephone just now — one of the men who have taken my place in the business; and as long as I have met you I will just walk along with you, and come Thursday. I suppose the baby won't be likely to wake up just yet, and when he does you'll have to get his supper and put him to bed. Is that the way the rule goes?"

Eudora nodded in a shamed, speechless sort of way.

"All right. I'll come Thursday — but say, look here, Eudora. This is a quiet road, not a soul in sight, just like an outdoor room to ourselves. Why shouldn't I know now just as well as wait? Say, Eudora, you know how I used to feel about you. Well, it has lasted all these years. There has never been another woman I even

cared to look at. You are alone, except for that baby, and I am alone. Eudora —"

The man hesitated. His flushed face had paled. Eudora paced silently and waveringly at his side.

"Eudora," the man went on, "you know you always used to run away from me — never gave me a chance to really ask; and I thought you didn't care. But somehow I have wondered — perhaps because you never got married — if you didn't quite mean it, if you didn't quite know your own mind. You'll think I'm a conceited ass, but I'm not a bad sort, Eudora. I would be as good to you as I know how, and — we could bring him up together." He pointed to the carriage. "I have plenty of money. We could do anything we wanted to do for him,

and we should not have to live alone. Say, Eudora, you may not think it's the thing for a man to own up to, but, hang it all! I'm alone, and I don't want to face the rest of my life alone. Eudora, do you think you could make up your mind to marry me, after all?"

They had reached the turn in the road. Just beyond rose the stately pile of the old Yates mansion. Eudora stood still and gave one desperate look at her lover. "I will let you know Thursday," she gasped. Then she was gone, trundling the baby-carriage with incredible speed.

"But, Eudora —"

"I must go," she called back, faintly. The man stood staring after the hurrying figure with its swishing black skirts and its flying points of rich

India shawl, and he smiled happily and tenderly. That evening at the inn his caller, a young fellow just married and beaming with happiness, saw an answering beam in the older man's face. He broke off in the midst of a sentence and stared at him.

"Don't give me away until I tell you to, Ned," he said, "but I don't know but I am going to follow your example."

"My example?"

"Yes, going to get married."

The young man gasped. A look of surprise, of amusement, then of generous sympathy came over his face. He grasped Lawton's hand.

"Who is she?"

"Oh, a woman I wanted more than anything in the world when I was about your age."

"Then she isn't young?"

"She is better than young."

"Well," agreed the young man, "being young and pretty is not everything."

"Pretty!" said Harry Lawton, scornfully, "pretty! She is a great beauty."

"And not young?"

"She is a great beauty, and better than young, because time has not touched her beauty, and you can see for yourself that it lasts."

The young man laughed. "Oh, well," he said, with a tender inflection, "I dare say that my Amy will look like that to me."

"If she doesn't you don't love her," said Lawton. "But my Eudora is that."

"That is a queer-sounding Greek name."

"She is Greek, like her name. Such beauty never grows old. She stands on her pedestal, and time only looks at her to love her."

"I thought you were a business man as hard as nails," said the young man, wonderingly. Lawton laughed.

When Thursday came, Lawton, carefully dressed and carrying a long tissue-paper package, evidently of roses, approached the Yates house. It was late in the afternoon. There had been a warm day, and the trees were clouds of green and more bushes had blossomed. Eudora had put on a green silk dress of her youth. The revolving fashions had made it very passable, and the fabric was as beautiful as ever.

When Lawton presented her with the roses she pinned one in the yellowed

lace which draped her bodice and put the rest in a great china vase on the table. The roses were very fragrant, and immediately the whole room was possessed by them.

A tiny, insistent cry came from a corner, and Lawton and Eudora turned toward it. There stood the old wooden cradle in which Eudora had been rocked to sleep, but over the clumsy hood Eudora had tacked a fall of rich old lace and a great bow of soft pink satin.

"He is waking up," said the man, in a hushed, almost reverent voice.

Eudora nodded. She went toward the cradle, and the man followed. She lifted the curtain of lace, and there became visible little feebly waving pink arms and hands, like tentacles of love, and a little puckered

pink face which was at once ugly and divinely beautiful.

"A fine boy," said the man. The baby made a grimace at him which was hideous but lovely.

"I do believe he thinks he knows you," said Eudora, foolishly.

The baby made a little nestling motion, and its creasy eyelids dropped.

"Looks to me as if he was going to sleep again," said Lawton, in a whisper. Eudora jogged the cradle gently with her foot, and both were still. Then Eudora dropped the lace veil over the cradle again and moved softly away.

Lawton followed her. "I haven't my answer yet, Eudora," he whis-pered, leaning over her shoulder as she moved.

"Come into the other room," she

"I DO BELIEVE HE THINKS HE KNOWS YOU AUNTIES"

[Description: Image of Eudora, sitting on the side of the cradle, and Lawton, standing, observing the baby.]

murmured, "or we shall wake the baby." Her voice was softly excited.

Eudora led the way into the parlor, upon whose walls hung some really good portraits and whose furnishings still merited the adjective magnificent. There had been opulence in the Yates family; and in this room, which had been conserved, there was still undimmed and unfaded evidence of it. Eudora drew aside a brocade curtain and sat down on an embroidered satin sofa. Lawton sat beside her.

"This room looks every whit as grand as it used to look to me when I was a boy," he said.

"It has hardly been opened, except to have it cleaned, since you went away," replied Eudora, "and no wear has come upon it."

"And everything was rather splendid

to begin with, and has lasted. And so were you, Eudora, and you have lasted. Well, what about my answer, dear girl?"

"You have to hear something first."

Lawton laughed. "A confession?"

Eudora held her head proudly. "No, not exactly," said she. "I am not sure that I have ever had anything to confess."

"You never were sure, you proud creature."

"I am not now. I never intended to deceive you, but you were deceived. I did intend to deceive others, others who had no right to know. I do not feel that I owe them any explanation. I do owe you one, although I do not feel that I have done anything wrong. Still, I cannot allow you to remain deceived."

"Well, what is it, dear?"

Eudora looked at him. "You remember that afternoon when you met me with the baby-carriage?"

"Well, I should think so. My memory has not failed me in three days."

"You thought I had a baby in that carriage."

"Of course I did."

"There wasn't a baby in the carriage."

"Well, what on earth was it, then? A cat?"

Eudora, if possible, looked prouder. "It was a package of soiled linen from the Lancaster girls."

"Oh, good heavens, Eudora!"

"Yes," said Eudora, proudly. "I lost nearly everything when that railroad failed. I had enough left

to pay the taxes, and that was all. After I had used a small sum in the savings-bank there was nothing. One day I went over to the Lancasters', and I — well, I had not had much to eat for several days. I was a little faint, and —"

"Eudora, you poor, darling girl!"

"And the Lancaster girls found out," continued Eudora, calmly. "They gave me something to eat, and I suppose I ate as if I were famished. I was."

"Eudora!"

"And they wanted to give me money, but I would not take it, and they had been trying to find a laundress for their finer linen — their old serving-woman was ill. They could find one for the heavier things, but they are very particular, and I was

sure I could manage, and so I begged them to let me have the work, and they did, and overpaid me, I fear. And I — I knew very well how many spying eyes were about, and I thought of my proud father and my proud mother and grandmother, and perhaps I was proud, too. You know they talk about the Yates pride. It was not so much because I was ashamed of doing honest work as because I did resent those prying eyes and tattling tongues, and so I said nothing, but I did go back and forth in broad daylight with the linen wrapped up in the old blue and white blanket, in my old carriage, and they thought what they thought."

Eudora laughed faintly. She had a gentle humor. "It was somewhat laughable, too," she observed. "The

Lancaster girls and I have had our little jests over it, but I felt that I could not deceive you."

Lawton looked bewildered. "But that is a real baby in there," he said, jerking an elbow toward the other room.

"Oh yes," replied Eudora. "I adopted him yesterday. I went to the Children's Home in Elmfield. Amelia Lancaster went with me. Wilson drove us over. I know a nurse there. She took care of mother in her last illness. And I adopted this baby; at least, I am going to. He comes of respectable people, and his parents are dead. His mother died when he was born. He is healthy, and I thought him a beautiful baby."

"Yes, he is," assented Lawton, but he still looked somewhat perplexed.

"But why did you hurry off so and get him, Eudora?" said he.

"I thought from what you said that day that you would be disappointed when you found out I had only the Lancaster linen and not a real baby," said Eudora with her calm, grand air and with no trace of a smile.

"Then that means that you say yes, Eudora?"

For the first time Eudora gave a startled glance at him. "Didn't you know?" she gasped.

"How should I? You had not said yes really, dear."

"Do you think," said Eudora Yates, "that I am not too proud to allow you to ask me if my answer were not yes?"

"So that is the reason you always

ran away from me, years ago, so that I never had a chance to ask you?"

"Of course," said Eudora. "No woman of my family ever allows a declaration which she does not intend to accept. I was always taught that by my mother."

Then a small but insistent cry rent the air. "The baby is awake!" cried Eudora, and ran, or, rather, paced swiftly — Eudora had been taught never to run — and Lawton followed. It was he who finally quieted the child, holding the little thing in his arms.

But the baby, before that, cried so long and lustily that all the women in the Glynn house opposite were on the alert, and also some of the friends who were calling there. Abby Simson was one.

"Harry Lawton has been there over an hour now," said Abby, while the wailing continued, "and I know as well as I want to that there will be a wedding."

"I wonder he doesn't object to that adopted baby," said Julia Esterbrook.

"I know one thing," said Abby Simson. "It must be a boy baby, it hollers so."

THE END