"To bring what up?" asked Abby, sharply. Her eyes looked as small and bright as needles.
Julia regarded her with intense satisfaction. "What do women generally bring up?" said she.
"I don't know of anything they bring up, whether they have it or not, except a baby," retorted Abby, sharply.
Julia wilted a little; but her sister, Mrs. Glynn, was not perturbed. She launched her thunderbolt of news at once, aware that the critical moment had come, when the quarry of suspicion had left the bushes.
"She has adopted a baby," said she, and paused like a woman who had fired a gun, half scared herself and shrinking from the report.
Ethel seconded her mother. "Yes," said she, "Miss Eudora has adopted a baby, and she has a baby-carriage, and she wheels it out any time she takes a notion." Ethel's speech was of the nature of an after-climax. The baby-carriage weakened the situation.
The other women seized upon the idea of the carriage to cover their surprise and prevent too much gloating on the part of Mrs.
Glynn, Ethel, and Julia.
"Is it a new carriage?" inquired Mrs. Lee.
"No, it looks like one that came over in the ark," retorted Mrs.
Glynn. Then she repeated: "She has adopted a baby," but this time there was no effect of an explosion. However, the treble chorus rose high, "Where did she get the baby? Was it a boy or a girl?
Why did she adopt it? Did it cry much?" and other queries, none of which Mrs. Glynn, Ethel, and Julia could answer very decidedly except the last. They all announced that the adopted baby was never heard to cry at all.
"Must be a very good child," said Abby.
"Must be a very healthy child," said Mrs. Lee, who had had experience with crying babies.
"Well, she has it, anyhow," said Mrs. Glynn.
Right upon the announcement came proof. The beautiful door of the old colonial mansion opposite was thrown open, and clumsy and cautious motion was evident. Presently a tall, slender woman came down the path between the box borders, pushing a baby-carriage. It was undoubtedly a very old carriage. It must have dated back to the fifties, if not the forties. It was made of wood, with a leather buggy-top, and was evidently very heavy.
Abby eyed it shrewdly. "If I am not mistaken," said she, "that is the very carriage Eudora herself was wheeled around in when she was a baby. I am almost sure I have seen that identical carriage before. When we were girls I used to go to the Yates house sometimes. Of course, it was always very formal, a little tea-party for Eudora, with her mother on hand, but I feel sure that I saw that carriage there one of those times.
"I suppose it cost a lot of money, in the time of it. The Yateses always got the very best for Eudora," said Julia. "And maybe Eudora goes about so little she doesn't realize how out of date the carriage is, but I should think it would be very heavy to wheel, especially if the baby is a good-sized one."
"It looks like a very large baby," said Ethel. "Of course, it is so rolled up we can't tell."
"Haven't you gone out and asked to see the baby?" said Abby.
"Would we dare unless Eudora Yates offered to show it?" said Julia, with a surprised air; and the others nodded assent. Then they all crowded to the front windows and watched from behind the screens of green flowering things. It was very early in the spring. Fairly hot days alternated with light frosts. The trees were touched with sprays of rose and gold and gold-green, but the wind still blew cold from the northern snows, and the occupant of Eudora's ancient carriage was presumably wrapped well to shelter it from harm. There was, in fact, nothing to be seen in the carriage, except a large roll of blue and white, as Eudora emerged from the yard and closed the iron gate of the tall fence behind her.
Through this fence pricked the evergreen box, and the deep yard was full of soft pastel tints of reluctantly budding trees and bushes. There was one deep splash of color from a yellow bush in full bloom.
Eudora paced down the sidewalk with a magnificent, stately gait.
There was something rather magnificent in her whole appearance.
Her skirts of old, but rich, black fabric swept about her long, advancing limbs; she held her black-bonneted head high, as if crowned. She pushed the cumbersome baby-carriage with no apparent effort. An ancient India shawl was draped about her sloping shoulders.
Eudora, as she passed the Glynn house, turned her face slightly, so that its pure oval was evident. She was now a beauty in late middle life. Her hair, of an indeterminate shade, swept in soft shadows over her ears; her features were regular; her expression was at once regal and gentle. A charm which was neither of youth nor of age reigned in her face; her grace had surmounted with triumphant ease the slope of every year. Eudora passed out of sight with the baby-carriage, lifting her proud lady-head under the soft droop of the spring boughs; and her inspectors, whom she had not seen, moved back from the Glynn windows with exclamations of astonishment.
"I wonder," said Abby, "whether she will have that baby call her ma or aunty."
Meantime Eudora passed down the village street until she reached the Lancaster house, about half a mile away on the same side.
There dwelt the Misses Amelia and Anna Lancaster, who were about Eudora's age, and a widowed sister, Mrs. Sophia Willing, who was much older. The Lancaster house was also a colonial mansion, much after the fashion of Eudora's, but it showed signs of continued opulence. Eudora's, behind her trees and leafing vines, was gray for lack of paint. Some of the colonial ornamental details about porches and roof were sloughing off or had already disappeared. The Lancaster house gleamed behind its grove of evergreen trees as white and perfect as in its youth.
The windows showed rich slants of draperies behind their green glister of old glass.
