“Your—your what?” stammered Nora, as all eyes were fixed on Miss Briggs’ face.
“My husband to be!” Elfreda raised her eyes, eyes full of happiness, to her friends. “I am to wed Mr. White in the early spring. You, my beloved friends, are the first to be told. Why should you not be first?”
“Oh, Hamilton, isn’t that perfectly wonderful!” cried Emma.
Emma had broken the ice, the dead silence that, for a few seconds, had followed Elfreda Briggs’ announcement, and then the exclamations and the congratulations fairly overwhelmed Elfreda and Hamilton White.
Everything else was forgotten.
“Well, old chappie, what have you got to say for yourself?” demanded Hippy Wingate, frowning on “Ham” White.
“Only that I am the most fortunate of men,” answered Hamilton White gravely.
“Never mind, Emma,” spoke up Grace smilingly as she looked into the flushed face of Emma Dean. “I have named the baby—I just now named her, and her name is Emma Grace Harlowe Gray.”
“Oh, the poor kid,” wailed Stacy. “To go through life with a name like that! My heart of hearts bleeds for her.”
“For he’s a jolly good fellow,” struck up Tom Gray, whereupon Grace ran to her piano and joined with the accompaniment, and the old house resounded to the rollicking song until the nurse came down, her face wearing a deep frown.