"Can a mother die too before her baby is born?"
Nobody could answer this. Somehow it seemed more improbable. Besides, we had no motherless counterpart of Johnny Blackmore to support the notion.
"Whether they die or whether they don't," said Laurie, summing up, "all that we've found out so far is that there must be a father and there must be a mother; a gentleman and a lady, that is, who are married. They must be married."
"No, they needn't be," I cried eagerly. "Sister Lucy Fry at our Meeting is not married, and she has a baby four months old!"
The sensational character of my information allowed my first utterance in a Lawn assembly to pass unreproved. There was an impressed silence. Everybody waited for more.
"It is not often, I don't think," I went on. "It was a mistake of some kind, and a sin too. Much prayer was offered up, and Aunt Jael nearly had her turned out of fellowship. It is wrong to have a baby if you are not married. Wrong, but not impossible."
"That's important," said Marcus, "but we've really found nothing out. How are they made? What makes them come?"
"The Lord," said I, sententiously. This was a falling off.
"I know. But how?"
Marcus was final. "This is a thing that has got to be asked at home. Tomorrow evening at half-past-five you will all report what you have found out. It is a thing we ought to know. We shall have to have children ourselves one day."