inen
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,"