Eileen was on the steps before she had time to turn off the engine.
“Is it a husband?” cried Eveley.
“No, babies,” chortled Eileen.
Eveley put her fingers over her lips, and swallowed painfully.
“It isn’t your turn,” she said disapprovingly. “You have to do these things in proper order. You can’t run backward. It isn’t being done.”
“Don’t be silly,” said Eileen. “Hop out, and come in. I am having a nursery made out of the maid’s bedroom that has never been used. It is perfectly dear, with blue Red-Riding-Hoods, and blue wolves and blue Jacks-and-Jills on a white background.”
“There is something wrong about this,” said Eveley solemnly, as she followed Eileen into the house, and up the two flights of stairs to her apartment.
“It is Ida’s babies, stupid,” explained Eileen at last. “I am to have them after all. Poor Jim’s sister is ill, and I must say, it almost serves her right,—she was so snippy about the children.”
“Oh, Ida’s babies! And has the Aunt-on-the-Other-Side-of-the-House had a change of heart?”
“Yes, a regular one. Heart failure, they call it. I tried so hard to get them when Ida died, but Agnes flatly refused to give them up and since her brother was their daddy and he was alive, I could not do much. I asked for them again, you know, when Jim died, and she was ruder than ever. But since the dispensation of heart failure, she can not keep them. I got a letter this morning, and wired for them to start immediately and I just got an answer that they will be here to-morrow afternoon. Then I sent for the decorators.”