The Yates Pride | Page 7

and
kissed her. Sophia and Anna followed her example. Eudora opened her
mouth as if to speak, but smiled instead, a fond, proud smile. During
the last fifteen minutes of her stay Amelia had slipped out of the room
with the blue and white bundle. Now she brought it out and laid it
carefully in the carriage.
"We are always so glad to see you, dearest Eudora," said she, "but you
understand --"
"Yes," said Sophia, "you understand, Eudora dear, that there is not the
slightest haste."
Eudora nodded, and her long neck seemed to grow longer.
When she was stepping regally down the path, Amelia said in a hasty
whisper to Sophia: "Did you tell her?"
Sophia shook her head. "No, sister."

"I didn't know but you might have, while I was out of the room."
"I did not," said Sophia. She looked doubtfully at Amelia, then at Anna,
and doubt flashed back and forth between the three pairs of blue eyes
for a second. Then Sophia spoke with authority, because she was the
only one of them all who had entered the estate of matrimony, and had
consequently obvious cognizance of such matters.
"I think," said she, "that Eudora should be told that Harry Lawton has
come back and is boarding at the Wellwood Inn."
"You think," faltered Amelia, "that it is possible she might meet him
unexpectedly?"
"I certainly do think so. And she might show her feelings in a way
which she would ever afterward regret."
"You think, then, that she --"
Sophia gave her sister a look. Amelia fled after Eudora and the
baby-carriage. She overtook her at the gate. She laid her hand on
Eudora's arm, draped with India shawl.
"Eudora!" she gasped.
Eudora turned her serene face and regarded her questioningly.
"Eudora," said Amelia, "have you heard of anybody's coming to stay at
the inn lately?"
"No," replied Eudora, calmly. "Why, dear?"
"Nothing, only, Eudora, a dear and old friend of yours, of ours, is there,
so I hear."
Eudora did not inquire who the old friend might be. "Really?" she
remarked. Then she said, "Goodby, Amelia dear," and resumed her
progress with the baby-carriage.

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