nd can't get back until Thursday. I was
coming over to-night to call on you, but I have a man coming to the inn
this evening--he called me up on the telephone just now--one of the men
who have taken my place in the business; and as long as I have met you
I will just walk along with you, and come Thursday. I suppose the baby
won't be likely to wake up just yet, and when he does you'll have to get
his supper and put him to bed. Is that the way the rule goes?"

Eudora nodded in a shamed, speechless sort of way.

"All right. I'll come Thursday--but say, look here, Eudora. This is a
quiet road, not a soul in sight, just like an outdoor room to ourselves.
Why shouldn't I know now just as well as wait? Say, Eudora, you know how
I used to feel about you. Well, it has lasted all these years. There has
never been another woman I even cared to look at. You are alone, except
for that baby, and I am alone. Eudora--"

The man hesitated. His flushed face had paled. Eudora paced silently and
waveringly at his side.

"Eudora," the man went on, "you know you always used to run away from
me--never gave me a chance to really ask; and I thought you didn't care.
But somehow I have wondered--perhaps because you never got married--if
you didn't quite mean it, if you didn't quite know your own mind. You'll
think I'm a conceited ass, but I'm not a bad sort, Eudora. I would be
as good to you as I know how, and--we could bring him up together." He
pointed to the carriage. "I have plenty of money. We could do anything
we wanted to do for him, and we should not have to live alone. Say,
Eudora, you may not think it's the thing for a man to own up to, but,
hang it all! I'm alone, and I don't want to face the rest of my life
alone. Eudora, do you think you could make up your mind to marry me,
after all?"

They had reached the turn in the road. Just beyond rose the stately pile
of the old Yates mansion. Eudora stood still and gave one desperate look
at her lover. "I will let you know Thursday," she gasped. Then she was
gone, trundling the baby-carriage with incredible speed.

"But, Eudora--"

"I must go," she called back, faintly. The man stood staring after the
hurrying figure with its swishing black skirts and its flying points of
rich India shawl, and he smiled happily and tenderly. That evening
at the inn his caller, a young fellow just married and beaming with
happiness, saw an answering beam in the older man's face. He broke off
in the mid