out and asked to see the baby?" said Abby.

"Would we dare unless Eudora Yates offered to show it?" said Julia, with
a surprised air; and the others nodded assent. Then they all crowded to
the front windows and watched from behind the screens of green flowering
things. It was very early in the spring. Fairly hot days alternated with
light frosts. The trees were touched with sprays of rose and gold and
gold-green, but the wind still blew cold from the northern snows, and
the occupant of Eudora's ancient carriage was presumably wrapped well
to shelter it from harm. There was, in fact, nothing to be seen in the
carriage, except a large roll of blue and white, as Eudora emerged from
the yard and closed the iron gate of the tall fence behind her.

Through this fence pricked the evergreen box, and the deep yard was full
of soft pastel tints of reluctantly budding trees and bushes. There was
one deep splash of color from a yellow bush in full bloom.

Eudora paced down the sidewalk with a magnificent, stately gait. There
was something rather magnificent in her whole appearance. Her skirts of
old, but rich, black fabric swept about her long, advancing limbs;
she held her black-bonneted head high, as if crowned. She pushed the
cumbersome baby-carriage with no apparent effort. An ancient India shawl
was draped about her sloping shoulders.

Eudora, as she passed the Glynn house, turned her face slightly, so that
its pure oval was evident. She was now a beauty in late middle life. Her
hair, of an indeterminate shade, swept in soft shadows over her ears;
her features were regular; her expression was at once regal and gentle.
A charm which was neither of youth nor of age reigned in her face;
her grace had surmounted with triumphant ease the slope of every year.
Eudora passed out of sight with the baby-carriage, lifting her proud
lady-head under the soft droop of the spring boughs; and her inspectors,
whom she had not seen, moved back from the Glynn windows with
exclamations of astonishment.

"I wonder," said Abby, "whether she will have that baby call her ma or
aunty."

Meantime Eudora passed down the village street until she reached the
Lancaster house, about half a mile away on the same side. There dwelt
the Misses Amelia and Anna Lancaster, who were about Eudora's age, and
a widowed sister, Mrs. Sophia Willing, who was much older. The Lancaster
house was also a colonial mansion, much after the fashion of Eudora's,
but it show