“I’m glad to meet you,” she said, earnestly looking the Misses Flint in their stony faces; “and if you’ll just hold these children a minute, I’ll shake hands, and then I’ll take my bonnet off, for this long veil is dreadfully in the way, and the babies do pull at it so!”
While Mrs. Taylor talked she distributed her offspring impartially between her two hostesses, and as the visitor’s movements were far quicker than the Flint ladies’ wits, Miss Priscilla and Miss Dorinda each found herself with a fat, roly-poly baby securely seated in the angle of her thin, stiff old left arm.
It may have been that some latent chord was touched in the hearts of the good ladies, or it may have been that their muscles were actually paralyzed with amazement, but at any rate they did not let the babies drop to the floor, as Ladybird confidently expected they would.
Having shaken hands politely, Mrs. Taylor proceeded to take off her bonnet, talking all the while in a casually conversational manner.
“Nice and neat, isn’t it?” she said, viewing with satisfaction the tiny bonnet which only served as a starting-point for the long black crape veil and a resting-place for the full white crape ruche. “I don’t often get a chance to wear it; but I’m so fond of it; it’s my greatest consolation since Mr. Taylor died. I call it my cloud with the silver lining.”
Stella took the precious bonnet from Mrs. Taylor’s hands, promising to put it safely away, and by that time Ladybird was presenting the elder Mr. Harris.
Though the old soldier was disabled and poor, he was a courtly gentleman of the old school and greeted the ladies with a quiet comprehension of his own dignity and theirs. Moreover, Richard Harris had been a friend of the Flint ladies in their youth, and though circumstances had pushed them far apart, a few slender threads of memory still held.
Ignoring their squirming left-armfuls, Major Harris shook hands with the Primrose ladies, and then, with the aid of his crutches, limped away.
It seemed a pathetic coincidence that his grandson Dick, who followed him, should also be on crutches, especially as his lameness lacked the patriotic glory of his grandfather’s.
Dick Harris was frankly delighted with the whole occasion, and did not hesitate to say so. He shook hands vigorously with the Misses Flint, and his face beamed as he expressed his gratitude for their invitation.