"Are you sorry, Ju?"
"Sorry!" The conscious eyes flashed into view. "Sorry!" Julie echoed in astonishment. "Why, Mark," she said dreamily,—there was no affectation of maturity in her manner now, and it was all the more impressive for that. "Why, Mark," said she, "it's—it's the most wonderful thing that ever happened to me! I think and think,"—her voice dropped very low,—"of holding it in my arms,—mine and Harry's, you know—and of its little face!"
Margaret, stirred, kissed the wet lashes.
"Ju, but you're so young—you're such a baby yourself!" she said.
"And, Mark," Julie said, unheeding, "you know what Harry and I are going to call her, if it's a girl? Not for Mother, for it's so confusing to have two Julias, but for you! Because," her arms went about her sister, "you've always been such a darling to me, Mark!"
Margaret went downstairs very thoughtfully, and out into the silent Sunday streets. Where they walked, or what they talked of, she did not know. She knew that her head ached, and that the village looked very commonplace, and that the day was very hot. She found it more painful than sweet to be strolling along beside the big, loose-jointed figure, and to send an occasional side glance to John Tenison's earnest face, which wore its pleasantest expression now. Ah, well, it would be all over at five o'clock, she said wearily to herself, and she could go home and lie down with her aching head in a darkened room, and try not to think what to-day might have been. Try not to think of the dainty little luncheon Annie would have given them at Mrs. Carr-Boldt's, of the luxurious choice of amusements afterward: motoring over the lovely country roads, rowing on the wide still water, watching the tennis courts, or simply resting in deep chairs on the sweep of velvet lawn above the river.
She came out of a reverie to find Doctor Tenison glancing calmly up from his watch.
"The train was five o'clock, was it?" he said. "I've missed it!"
"Missed it!" Margaret echoed blankly. Then, as the horrible possibility dawned upon her, "Oh, no!"
"Oh, yes,—as bad as that!" he said, laughing at her.