Produced by Judith Boss
THE YATES PRIDE
A ROMANCE
By Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
PART I
Opposite Miss Eudora Yates's old colonial mansion was the perky modernQueen Anne residence of Mrs. Joseph Glynn. Mrs. Glynn had a daughter,Ethel, and an unmarried sister, Miss Julia Esterbrook. All three werefond of talking, and had many callers who liked to hear the feeblyeffervescent news of Wellwood. This afternoon three ladies were there:Miss Abby Simson, Mrs. John Bates, and Mrs. Edward Lee. They sat in theGlynn sitting-room, which shrilled with treble voices as if a flock ofsparrows had settled therein.
The Glynn sitting-room was charming, mainly because of the quantityof flowering plants. Every window was filled with them, until the roomseemed like a conservatory. Ivy, too, climbed over the pictures, and themantel-shelf was a cascade of wandering Jew, growing in old china vases.
"Your plants are really wonderful, Mrs. Glynn," said Mrs. Bates, "but Idon't see how you manage to get a glimpse of anything outside the house,your windows are so full of them."
"Maybe she can see and not be seen," said Abby Simson, who had a quickwit and a ready tongue.
Mrs. Joseph Glynn flushed a little. "I have not the slightest curiosityabout my neighbors," she said, "but it is impossible to live just acrossthe road from any house without knowing something of what is going on,whether one looks or not," said she, with dignity.
"Ma and I never look out of the windows from curiosity," said EthelGlynn, with spirit. Ethel Glynn had a great deal of spirit, which wasevinced in her personal appearance as well as her tongue. She had aneye to the fashions; her sleeves were never out of date, nor was thearrangement of her hair.
"For instance," said Ethel, "we never look at the house opposite becausewe are at all prying, but we do know that that old maid has been doing amighty queer thing lately."
"First thing you know you will be an old maid yourself, and then yourstones will break your own glass house," said Abby Simson.
"Oh, I don't care," retorted Ethel. "Nowadays an old maid isn't an oldmaid except from choice, and everybody knows it. But it must have beendifferent in Miss Eudora's time. Why, she is older than you are, MissAbby."
"Just five years," replied Abby, unruffled, "and she had chances, and Iknow it."
"Why didn't she take them, then?"
"Maybe," said Abby, "girls had choice then as much as now, but I nevercould make out why she didn't marry Harry Lawton."
Ethel gave her head a toss. "Maybe," said she, "once in a while, even solong ago, a girl wasn't so crazy to get married as folks thought. Maybeshe didn't want him."
"She did want him," said Abby. "A girl doesn't get so pale andpeaked-looking for nothing as Eudora Yates did, after she had dismissedHarry Lawton and he had gone away, nor haunt the post-office as she usedto, and, when she didn't get a letter, go away looking as if she woulddie."
"Maybe," said Ethel, "her folks were opposed."
"Nobody ever opposed Eudora Yates except her own self," replied Abby."Her father was dead, and Eudora's ma thought the sun rose and setin her. She would never have opposed her if she had wanted to marry aforeign duke or the old Harry himself."
"I remember it perfectly," said Mrs. Joseph Glynn.
"So do I," said Julia Esterbrook.
"Don't see why you shouldn't. You were plenty old enough to have yourmemory in good working order if it was ever going to be," said AbbySimson.
"Well," said Ethel, "it is the funniest thing I ever heard of. If a girlwanted a man enough to go all to pieces over him, and he wanted her, whyon earth didn't she take him?"
"Maybe they quarreled," ventured Mrs. Edward Lee, who was a mild,sickly-looking woman and seldom expressed an opinion.
"Well, that might have been," agreed Abby, "although Eudora always hadthe name of having a beautiful disposition."
"I have always found," said Mrs. Joseph Glynn, with an air of wisdom,"that it is the beautiful dispositions which are the most set the minutethey get a start the wrong way. It is the always-flying-out people whoare the easiest to get on with in the long run."
"Well," said Abby, "maybe that is so, but folks might get worn all to afrazzle by the flying-out ones before the long run. I'd rather take mychances with a woman like Eudora. She always seems just so, just as calmand sweet. When the Ames's barn, that was next to hers, burned down andthe wind was her way, she just walked in and out of her house, carryingthe things she valued most, and she looked like a picture--somehow shehad got all dressed fit to make calls--and there wasn't a muscle of herface that seemed to move. Eudora Yates is to my mind the most beautifulwoman in this town, old or young, I don't care who she is."
"I suppose," said Julia Esterbrook, "that she has a lot of money."
"I wonder if she has," said Mrs. John Bates.
The others stared at her. "What makes you think she hasn't?" Mrs. Glynninquired, sharply.
"Nothing," said Mrs. Bates, and closed her thin lips. She would say nomore, but the others had suspicions, because her husband, John Bates,was a wealthy business man.
"I can't believe she has lost her money," said Mrs. Glynn. "She wouldn'thave been such a fool as to do what she has if she hadn't money."
"What has she done?" asked Mrs. Bates, eagerly.
"What has she done?" asked Abby, and Mrs. Lee looked up inquiringly.
The faces of Mrs. Glynn, her daughter, and her sister became important,full of sly and triumphant knowledge.
"Haven't you heard?" asked Mrs. Glynn.
"Yes, haven't you?" asked Ethel.
"Haven't any of you heard?" asked Julia Esterbrook.
"No," admitted Abby, rather feebly. "I don't know as I have."
"Do you mean about Eudora's going so often to the Lancaster girls' totea?" asked Mrs. John Bates, with a slight bridle of possible knowledge.
"I heard of that," said Mrs. Lee, not to be outdone.
"Land, no," replied Mrs. Glynn. "Didn't she always go there? It isn'tthat. It is the most unheard-of thing she had done; but no woman, unlessshe had plenty of money to bring it up, would have done it."
"To bring what up?" asked Abby, sharply. Her eyes looked as small andbright as needles.
Julia regarded her with intense satisfaction. "What do women generallybring up?" said she.
"I don't know of anything they bring up, whether they have it or not,except a baby," retorted Abby, sharply.
Julia wilted a little; but her sister, Mrs. Glynn, was not perturbed.She launched her thunderbolt of news at once, aware that the criticalmoment had come, when the quarry of suspicion had left the bushes.
"She has adopted a baby," said she, and paused like a woman who hadfired a gun, half scared herself and shrinking from the report.
Ethel seconded her mother. "Yes," said she, "Miss Eudora has adopted ababy, and she has a baby-carriage, and she wheels it out any time shetakes a notion." Ethel's speech was of the nature of an after-climax.The baby-carriage weakened the situation.
The other women seized upon the idea of the carriage to cover theirsurprise and prevent too much gloating on the part of Mrs. Glynn, Ethel,and Julia.
"Is it a new carriage?" inquired Mrs. Lee.
"No, it looks like one that came over in the ark," retorted Mrs. Glynn.Then she repeated: "She has adopted a baby," but this time there was noeffect of an explosion. However, the treble chorus rose high, "Where didshe get the baby? Was it a boy or a girl? Why did she adopt it? Did itcry much?" and other queries, none of which Mrs. Glynn, Ethel, and Juliacould answer very decidedly except the last. They all announced that theadopted baby was never heard to cry at all.
"Must be a very good child," said Abby.
"Must be a very healthy chi
ld," said Mrs. Lee, who had had experiencewith crying babies.
"Well, she has it, anyhow," said Mrs. Glynn.
Right upon the announcement came proof. The beautiful door of the oldcolonial mansion opposite was thrown open, and clumsy and cautiousmotion was evident. Presently a tall, slender woman came down the pathbetween the box borders, pushing a baby-carriage. It was undoubtedly avery old carriage. It must have dated back to the fifties, if notthe forties. It was made of wood, with a
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