The loss and ruin of Washington had been news to Ralston, though he had known the march of the vandals was inevitable. Annis interested and amused him in her talk. She was a very pronounced patriot in these days.
Eustace Stafford seemed quite bewitched with her. He came over every afternoon to bring word of Ralston, and perhaps to have an encounter of words with Annis. This day, while there were so many to entertain his friend, he stole off to school to walk home with her, though there was not a cloud in the sky that could give him a shadow of excuse.
She was going to walk some distance with one of her mates. "Perhaps it would tire you," she said mischievously.
"I have been in the house all the morning," was the reply.
"Did they bring the baby? It's the most beautiful baby in the world, isn't it?"
"I haven't seen all the babies in the world—" a little awkwardly.
"But he ought to be able to tell whether one is pretty or not, oughtn't he, Eliza?"
Eliza, thus appealed to, hung her head and said, "Perhaps—" frightened and yet delighted to comment on a young man's taste.
"Perhaps British babies are different," was Annis' rather teasing comment.
"I think babies are a good deal alike—"