Eudora paced down the sidewalk with a magnificent, stately gait. There was something rather magnificent in her whole appearance. Her skirts of old, but rich, black fabric swept about her long, advancing limbs; she held her black-bonneted head high, as if crowned. She pushed the cumbersome baby-carriage with no apparent effort. An ancient India shawl was draped about her sloping shoulders.
Eudora, as she passed the Glynn house, turned her face slightly, so that its pure oval was evident. She was now a beauty in late middle life. Her hair, of an indeterminate shade, swept in soft shadows over her ears; her features were regular; her expression was at once regal and gentle. A charm which was neither of youth nor of age reigned in her face; her grace had surmounted with triumphant ease the slope of every year. Eudora passed out of sight with the baby-carriage, lifting her proud lady-head under the soft droop of the spring boughs; and her inspectors, whom she had not seen, moved back from the Glynn windows with exclamations of astonishment.
“I wonder,” said Abby, “whether she will have that baby call her ma or aunty.”
Meantime Eudora passed down the village street until she reached the Lancaster house, about half a mile away on the same side. There dwelt the Misses Amelia and Anna Lancaster, who were about Eudora’s age, and a widowed sister, Mrs. Sophia Willing, who was much older. The Lancaster house was also a colonial mansion, much after the fashion of Eudora’s, but it showed signs of continued opulence. Eudora’s, behind her trees and leafing vines, was gray for lack of paint. Some of the colonial ornamental details about porches and roof were sloughing off or had already disappeared. The Lancaster house gleamed behind its grove of evergreen trees as white and perfect as in its youth. The windows showed rich slants of draperies behind their green glister of old glass.
A gardener, with a boy assistant, was at work in the grounds when Eudora entered. He touched his cap. He was an old man who had lived with the Lancasters ever since Eudora could remember. He advanced toward her now. “Sha’n’t Tommy push—the baby-carriage up to the house for you, Miss Eudora?” he said, in his cracked old voice.
Eudora flushed slightly, and, as if in response, the old man flushed, also. “No, I thank you, Wilson,” she said, and moved on.
The boy, who was raking dry leaves, stood gazing at them with a shrewd, whimsical expression. He was the old man’s grandson.
“Is that a boy or a girl kid, grandpa?” he inquired, when the gardener returned.
“Hold your tongue!” replied the old man, irascibly. Suddenly he seized the boy by his two thin little shoulders with knotted old hands.
“Look at here, Tommy, whatever you know, you keep your mouth shet, and whatever you don’t know, you keep your mouth shet, if you know what’s good for you,” he said, in a fierce whisper.