"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 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 ******, 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?"
