A gardener, with a boy assistant, was at work in the grounds when Eudora entered. He touched his cap. He was an old man who had lived with the Lancasters ever since Eudora could remember. He advanced toward her now. "Sha'n't Tommy push--the baby-carriage up to the house for you, Miss Eudora?" he said, in his cracked old voice.
Eudora flushed slightly, and, as if in response, the old man flushed, also. "No, I thank you, Wilson," she said, and moved on.
The boy, who was raking dry leaves, stood gazing at them with a shrewd, whimsical expression. He was the old man's grandson.
"Is that a boy or a girl kid, grandpa?" he inquired, when the gardener returned.
"Hold your tongue!" replied the old man, irascibly. Suddenly he seized the boy by his two thin little shoulders with knotted old hands.
"Look at here, Tommy, whatever you know, you keep your mouth shet, and whatever you don't know, you keep your mouth shet, if you know what's good for you," he said, in a fierce whisper.
The boy whistled and shrugged his shoulders loose. "You know I ain't goin' to tell tales, grandpa," he said, in a curiously manly fashion.
The old man nodded. "All right, Tommy. I don't believe you be, nuther, but you may jest as well git it through your head what's goin' to happen if you do."
"Ain't goin' to," returned the boy. He whistled charmingly as he raked the leaves. His whistle sounded like the carol of a bird.
Eudora pushed the carriage around to the side door, and immediately there was a fluttering rush of a slender woman clad in lavender down the steps. This woman first kissed Eudora with gentle fervor, then, with a sly look around and voice raised intentionally high, she lifted the blue and white roll from the carriage with the tenderest care. "Did the darling come to see his aunties?" she shrilled.
The old man and the boy in the front yard heard her distinctly.
The old man's face was imperturbable. The boy grinned.
Two other women, all clad in lavender, appeared in the doorway.
They also bent over the blue and white bundle. They also said something about the darling coming to see his aunties. Then there ensued the softest chorus of lady-laughter, as if at some hidden joke.
"Come in, Eudora dear," said Amelia Lancaster. "Yes, come in, Eudora dear," said Anna Lancaster. "Yes, come in, Eudora dear," said Sophia Willing.
Sophia looked much older than her sisters, but with that exception the resemblance between all three was startling. They always dressed exactly alike, too, in silken fabric of bluish lavender, like myrtle blossoms. Some of the poetical souls in the village called the Lancaster sisters "The ladies in lavender."
There was an astonishing change in the treatment of the blue and white bundle when the sisters and Eudora were in the stately old sitting-room, with its heavy mahogany furniture and its white-wainscoted calls. Amelia simply tossed the bundle into a corner of the sofa; then the sisters all sat in a loving circle around Eudora.
"Are you sure you are not utterly worn out, dear?" asked Amelia, tenderly; and the others repeated the question in exactly the same tone. The Lancaster sisters were not pretty, but all had charming expressions of gentleness and a dignified good-will and loving kindness. Their blue eyes beamed love at Eudora, and it was as if she sat encircled in a soul-ring of affection.
She responded, and her beautiful face glowed with tenderness and pleasure, and something besides, which was as the light of victory.
"I am not in the least tired, thank you, dears," she replied.
"Why should I be tired? I am very strong."
Amelia murmured something about such hard work.
