The Yates Pride | Page 8

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