Betty, in the rear seat, cuddled cozily against her rigid aunt and kept up a constant flow of conversation in her pretty chirpy voice.
“Are you an old maid? Aunt Agnes said you were. Did you do it on purpose, or couldn’t you help yourself? I am not going to be an old maid. I am engaged now. Billy tried to be engaged, too, but Freckle Harvey cut him out.”
Billy suddenly squared about in his seat, and Betty shivered into a small and terrified heap. “Aw, no, he didn’t either. Billy didn’t like her worth a cent. He thinks she is just hideous, don’t you, Billy? You ain’t mad at me, are you, Billy?”
When Eveley drew the car up before the big apartment-house on Sixth Street, Billy forgot his temporary burst of manners. With a hoarse shout he slid deftly over the door and dashed up the steps. Shrieking gleefully, Betty followed swiftly in his wake.
“Oh, Eveley,” faltered Eileen, “I am afraid they scratched the car.” She got out hastily, and caught her lips between her teeth as she saw the long jagged scratch on the door where Betty’s sharp heel had passed.
“Never mind,” said Eveley bravely. “It doesn’t make a bit of difference. We all know how children are.”
“I—I didn’t,” said Eileen weakly. “I—guess I am an old maid. I hadn’t realized it.”
In Betty’s extravagant delight over the new room, and Billy’s quiet but equally sincere pleasure, something of Eileen’s own enthusiasm returned, and although her ministrations upon Billy’s marred countenance, performed under the critical and painstaking eye of Sister Betty, left her weak-kneed and pale, she took her place at the table with something very much akin to pleasure, if it were not the jubilant delight she had anticipated.
Eveley went home immediately after dinner, stopping on her way for Nolan. They spent an uproarious hour over her account of the twins and their reception. And at last, weak with laughter, Eveley wiped her eyes, and said with deep sympathy:
“Poor Eileen! And the twins are adorable. But I believe one needs to be born with children and grow up with them gradually. For when they spring upon you full grown they are—well, they are certainly a shock.”