The ladies ate and drank, and the blue and white bundle on the sofa remained motionless. Eudora, after she had finished her tea, leaned back gracefully in her chair, and her dark eyes gleamed with its mild stimulus. She remained an hour or more. When she went out, Amelia slipped an envelope into her hand and at the same time embraced and kissed her. Sophia and Anna followed her example. Eudora opened her mouth as if to speak, but smiled instead, a fond, proud smile. During the last fifteen minutes of her stay Amelia had slipped out of the room with the blue and white bundle. Now she brought it out and laid it carefully in the carriage.
“We are always so glad to see you, dearest Eudora,” said she, “but you understand--”
“Yes,” said Sophia, “you understand, Eudora dear, that there is not the slightest haste.”
Eudora nodded, and her long neck seemed to grow longer.
When she was stepping regally down the path, Amelia said in a hasty whisper to Sophia: “Did you tell her?”
“I didn’t know but you might have, while I was out of the room.”
“I did not,” said Sophia. She looked doubtfully at Amelia, then at Anna, and doubt flashed back and forth between the three pairs of blue eyes for a second. Then Sophia spoke with authority, because she was the only one of them all who had entered the estate of matrimony, and had consequently obvious cognizance of such matters.
“I think,” said she, “that Eudora should be told that Harry Lawton has come back and is boarding at the Wellwood Inn.”
“You think,” faltered Amelia, “that it is possible she might meet him unexpectedly?”
“I certainly do think so. And she might show her feelings in a way which she would ever afterward regret.”
Sophia gave her sister a look. Amelia fled after Eudora and the baby-carriage. She overtook her at the gate. She laid her hand on Eudora’s arm, draped with India shawl.
Eudora turned her serene face and regarded her questioningly.
“Eudora,” said Amelia, “have you heard of anybody’s coming to stay at the inn lately?”
“No,” replied Eudora, calmly. “Why, dear?”
“Nothing, only, Eudora, a dear and old friend of yours, of ours, is there, so I hear.”
Eudora did not inquire who the old friend might be. “Really?” she remarked. Then she said, “Goodby, Amelia dear,” and resumed her progress with the baby-carriage.