"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."
