She walked slowly, perhaps because of her burden.
"That's a fine college, I s'pose?" she said, inquiringly.
"It's good enough," Caroline allowed, "of course Yale's the best. We all go to Yale. Uncle Joe says there had to be something for Yale to beat, so they founded Harvard!"
"You don't say," Mrs. Ufford returned, "that's funny."
They were very near the brougham now. It stood as deserted as when Caroline had left it. The baby in the bundled blanket neither cried nor stirred.
"He's the best child," said the woman, with her tired, kindly smile. "He's next to nothing to tend to. If he'd felt to go back to her folks with it, I'd 'a' gone with him to look after it. I've got enough for that—the things sold real well, and he'd never let me lose, anyhow. He isn't that kind. I took a real likin' to both of 'em. I've kept boarders, all over, for fifteen years and I never lost a cent from anybody like him, not one. You get to know all sorts, keepin' boarders, and Mr. Williston's all right—though you mightn't think so," she ended loyally.
Caroline hardly listened. She saw herself in the bearskin reception room, up the stairs, in the library, her baby in her arms; she heard the incredulous joy of the Duchess, she explained importantly with convincing detail, to Cousin Richard the critical. To her eager soul this thin, friendly woman was merely an incident; that irritable, incoherent man less than a dream.
They paused on the curb, and she opened the brougham door hospitably.
"You get in first," she said, "and then I can hold him a little while, can't I?"
"I never was in one o' these," Mrs. Ufford answered doubtfully, "s'pose you go in first. It can't go—or back, or anything, can it?"