close, with his speculations and all, since the war. He can have it all.
It isn't too late yet. Adele! Della, my baby."

"Don't, Aunt Sophy. It wouldn't be enough, anyway. Daniel has been
wonderful, really. Don't look like that. I'd have hated being poor,
anyway. Never could have got used to it. It is ridiculous, though, isn't
it? Like one of those melodramas, or a cheap movie. I don't mind. I'm
lucky, really, when you come to think of it. A plain little black thing
like me."

"But your mother--"

"Mother doesn't know a thing."

Flora wept mistily all through the ceremony but Adele was composed
enough for two.

When, scarcely a month later, Baldwin came to Sophy Decker, his face
drawn and queer, Sophy knew.

"How much?" she said.

"Thirty thousand will cover it. If you've got more than that--"

"I thought Oakley--Adele said--"

"He did, but he won't any more, and this thing's got to be met. It's
this damned war that's done it. I'd have been all right. People got
scared. They wanted their money. They wanted it in cash."

"Speculating with it, were you?"

"Oh, well, a woman doesn't understand these business deals."

"No, naturally," said Aunt Sophy, "a butterfly like me."

"Sophy, for God's sake don't joke now. I tell you this will cover it,
and everything will be all right. If I had anybody else to go to for the
money I wouldn't ask you. But you'll get it back. You know that."

Aunt Sophy got up, heavily, and went over to her desk. "It was for the
children, anyway. They won't need it now."

He looked up at that. Something in her voice. "Who won't? Why won't
they?"

"I don't know what made me say that. I had a dream."

"Eugene?"

"Yes."

"Oh, well, we're all nervous. Flora has dreams every night and
presentiments every fifteen minutes. Now, look here, Sophy. About this
money. You'll never know how grateful I am. Flora doesn't understand
these things but I can talk to you. It's like this--"

"I might as well be honest about it," Sophy interrupted. "I'm doing it,
not for you, but for Flora, and Delia--and Eugene. Flora has lived such
a sheltered life. I sometimes wonder if she ever really knew any of you.
Her husband, or her children. I sometimes have the feeling that Delia
and Eugene are my children--were my children."

When he came home that night Baldwin told his wife that old Soph was
getting queer. "She talks about the children being hers," he said.

"Oh, well, she's awfully fond of them,