ss Chris. "He was always fond of children.
I remember distinctly the way he carried on when his first child was
born--but he lost him of croup before he was a month old."

She left the room to see after the housekeeping, and Eugenia hugged the
baby to her bosom, and cried over him and kissed him, and thought his
eyes were like her father's--though, for that matter, the general's were
gray and watery, with weak red lids that blinked. The baby gurgled and
showed his gums still more and clutched the lace upon his mother's
breast until it hung in shreds. It was a new gown, but neither Eugenia
nor the baby cared for that--if he had wanted to pull her hair out,
strand by strand, she would have submitted rather than have brought a
wrinkle to his cloudless brow.

A little later she took him out upon the sidewalk, after swathing him
from head to foot in a light-blue veil that floated about her like a
strip of sky. It was here that Juliet Galt found her, as she was
passing, and, throwing back her pretty head, she laughed until the tears
came.

"O Eugie, Eugie, if you had six!" she gasped.

Eugenia flinched slightly at her merriment. "But, Juliet, I can't trust
him with a nurse. Why, you told me only the other day that your faithful
old Fanny called Elizabeth an 'imp of Satan.'"

Juliet only wrung her hands and laughed the more. "It's too funny," she
panted at last; "but I'm sure if Fanny said it about Elizabeth it was
true--she never tells stories." Then she rippled off again. "Oh, my poor
Dudley! How does he endure it? Why, Ben would ship the babies off to
boarding school if I attempted this."

"Dudley tries to be good about it," replied Eugenia, "but he hates it
awfully."

Juliet went by, and Eugenia kept up her slow promenade until Dudley came
up to dinner. Then she followed him into the house and upstairs to her
room, where he turned upon her reproachfully:

"I say, Eugie, I wish you'd stop this sort of thing. It isn't fair to
me, you know."

"How absurd, Dudley!"

"But it isn't. People will begin to say that I'm bankrupt or a beast. If
you will go parading round like this, for heaven's sake hire a servant
or two to follow after; it'll look more decent."

Eugenia's response was far from satisfactory, and the next morning,
before going to his office, he drew Miss Chris aside and unburdened
himself into her sympathetic ear. "You don't think Eugie's a--a--exactly
crazy, do you, Aunt Chris?" he wound up with, for Mi