He had not time to reply before Jewel, radiant of face, appeared in the doorway, where she hesitated, her doll in her arms.
“I brought Anna Belle,” she said doubtfully, “but I can leave her under the stairs if there isn't room.”
“Anna Belle under the stairs on a morning like this! And in such a toilet? Talk about error!” The doctor's tone was tragic as he lifted the happy child into the buggy.
Mrs. Evringham nodded a reply to their smiling farewells as Hector sprang forward, and she looked after them in some perplexity.
“Why should he take the trouble?” she reflected. “It would have been such a splendid morning for them to have gone riding if he had this leisure. Of course it must have been just one of his indirect and lovely ways of trying to please Eloise.”
Just as she was solacing herself with the latter reflection, her daughter stepped out on the piazza, a little black book in her hand.
“Warm enough to sit out, isn't it?” she remarked.
Her mother looked at her critically. She had not seen this care-free look on her child's face since Lawrence died.
“Why didn't you come out a little sooner?”
“I wasn't presentable. How delicious the air is!”