It was not often that Eileen Trevis, who was manifestly born for business, waxed hysterically enthusiastic. And so one morning a few days later, when an incoherent summons came from her over the telephone, Eveley was astonished almost to the point of speechlessness.

“What is it?” she gasped. “What has happened? Is it bad news?”

“Good, good, good,” exulted Eileen. “Wonderful, delicious, thrilling. Please hurry. It is nearly lunch-time, isn’t it? I have been trying to get you all morning,—come quickly.—Never mind about your luncheon.—Are you coming?”

“I am on the way,” shouted Eveley, crashing the receiver on to its hook, and flying with scant ceremony from the office, hoping it was truly the luncheon hour, but scorning to waste the time to look.

“She is in love,” she said aloud as she ran down the stairs, spurning a tardy elevator. “She is in love, and she is engaged, or maybe she has eloped and is already married. Eileen Trevis,—of all people in the world. Whoever would have thought it?”

Only the absence of traffic officers in that part of the city kept Eveley from arrest that day, and only the protection of Heaven itself saved her from total wreckage, for she spun around corners, and dodged traffic warts at a rate that was positively neck-breaking. The last block before she reached Eileen’s home was one long coast, and she drew up sharply with a triumphant honk.

Eileen was on the steps before she had time to turn off the engine.

“Is it a husband?” cried Eveley.

“No, babies,” chortled Eileen.

Eveley put her fingers over her lips, and swallowed painfully.

“It isn’t your turn,” she said disapprovingly. “You have to do these things in proper order. You can’t run backward. It isn’t being done.”

“Don’t be silly,” said Eileen. “Hop out, and come in. I am having a nursery made out of the maid’s bedroom that has never been used. It is perfectly dear, with blue Red-Riding-Hoods, and blue wolves and blue Jacks-and-Jills on a white background.”

“There is something wrong about this,” said Eveley solemnly, as she followed Eileen into the house, and up the two flights of stairs to her apartment.

“It is Ida’s babies, stupid,” explained Eileen at last. “I am to have them after all. Poor Jim’s sister is ill, and I must say, it almost serves her right,—she was so snippy about the children.”

“Oh, Ida’s babies! And has the Aunt-on-the-Other-Side-of-the-House had a change of heart?”

“Yes, a regular one. Heart failure, they call it. I tried so hard to get them when Ida died, but Agnes flatly refused to give them up and since her brother was their daddy and he was alive, I could not do much. I asked for them again, you know, when Jim died, and she was ruder than ever. But since the dispensation of heart failure, she can not keep them. I got a letter this morning, and wired for them to start immediately and I just got an answer that they will be here to-morrow afternoon. Then I sent for the decorators.”

“You aren’t any mother for small children,” protested Eveley, with an argumentative wave of her hand. “You are born for business. Everybody says so. You do not know anything about babies.”

“Oh, yes I do,” cried Eileen ecstatically. “They have fat legs and dimples, and Betty sucks her thumb and has to be scolded, and Billy shouts ‘More jam’ and smudges it on his knees.”

“Are you giving up your position?”

“Oh, mercy, no. We have to live. Poor Jim only left them insurance and nothing else, and that did not last very long. I sent the other aunt a small check every month to help along and sort of heap coals of fire on her head at the same time. No, I shall have to work harder than ever now. But I get one seventy-five a month now,—and lots of families live on less.”

“Who will keep house then—Betty?”

“Don’t ask silly questions, Eveley, I am so nervous anyhow I hardly know what I am saying. You remember my laundress, don’t you? She is so nice and motherly and a Methodist and respectable and all that,—only old and hard up. She is coming to live with us,—she will have the den for her room, and is closing her cottage. She is to keep house and look after the babies while I am at work. She only charges twenty-five a month, so I can manage. The rent does seem high, fifty dollars,—but we need the room, though you all thought it was so extravagant for me to have such a large apartment to myself. But you know how I am, Eveley,—I like lots of space,—a place for everything, and everything where it belongs. So I was willing to stand the expense, and now it is a good thing I did. Come and see the baby room.”

Eveley duly admired the blue Red-Riding-Hoods and Jacks-and-Jills, exclaimed over the tiny white beds, and tiny white tables and chairs, and then said:

“You seem to be enjoying this experience, so I suppose you do not feel it is your duty, nor anything sordid like that?”

“Oh, no,” laughed Eileen. “I am doing it because I am just crazy about those babies, and I am sort of lonely, Eveley, though I have never realized it before. And when I think of coming home to a frolic with fat little babies in white dresses and blue ribbons,—well, I am so happy I could fairly cry.”

So Eveley put her arms around her, and kissed her, and offered a few suggestions about appropriate food for angel babies,—feeling very wise from her recent experience with Nathalie and Dan, and invited them all to go driving with her on Saturday afternoon, and mentally planned to send them an enormous box of candy in the morning after their arrival, and then said she must hurry back to work.

“Oh, you poor thing,” cried Eileen in contrition. “You did not have any luncheon at all, did you? Wait until I fix a sandwich and you can slip into the dressing-room and eat it. It will only take a minute. You may have some of these animal cookies too,—I got a dollar’s worth,—I knew the babies would love them. Now, Eveley, won’t you come to dinner to-morrow night and meet my little blesseds? The train comes at six-ten, and Mrs. Allis, I mean, Aunt Martha,—we have decided to call her Aunt Martha,—will have dinner all ready for us.”

“Certainly I’ll come,” said Eveley promptly. “I shall love it. And I’ll come for you in the car and take you to the station.”

After work that night, Eveley went into the ten-cent store, and bought a startling array of drums and horns and small shovels, and sent them out to Eileen’s for the babies. And that night she insisted that Nolan must come to dinner with her to hear the great good news.

“It is just because she wants to do it,” she said happily. “That is why she is so full of joy. It is plain selfishness,—she has no thought of doing her Christian duty nor any such nonsense. And—well, you would hardly know Eileen. Her eyes are like stars, and her voice runs up and down stairs in beautiful trills, and she forgot to wear her hair net.”

“Wait till Billy gets jam on her lace bedspread, and Betty cuts up her new bonnet to get the pretty flowers, and wait till they both get mad and yowl at once,—she’ll be lucky if she remembers her Christian duty then.”

“Isn’t he crabbish, Marie?” asked Eveley plaintively. “He doesn’t like to see people happy and thrilled and throbbing.”

“Oh, yes, I do. I am thrilled and happy and throbbing myself right now. There is something about this Cote in the Clouds that—”

“And dear Eileen has lived alone so long, poor thing.”

“I can sympathize with her all right. I have, too.”

“And now she will have a home, a real home—”

“My own dream for years.”

“Sweet companionship—”

“Heaven on earth, Eveley, heaven on earth.”

“Something to live for—”

“Alas, how I envy her.”

“Nolan, if you do not keep still and pay attention, I shall stop talking and let you propose,—right before Marie,—and then where will you be?”

“Married, I hope.”

So Eveley decided there was no use to try to talk sense with Nolan, but she arranged to call for him at eight o’clock the next morning to take him to Eileen’s and show him the blue Red-Riding-Hoods and the toys.

As she left the house to keep her engagement with Nolan, she was surprised to see Mrs. Severs starting out, for Mrs. Severs was not used to being out so early.

“Why, little Bride, whither away?” laughed Eveley.

Mrs. Severs flushed. “I am going to spend the day with father,” she admitted, rather shyly. “It is sort of lonesome here alone all the time,—and we have lots of fun in the little cottage on the hill. And sometimes we go out on the beach and lie on the sand,—he takes me in his jitney. He thinks I need more sunshine and fresh air.”

“He is great, isn’t he?” said Eveley warmly.

“He is dear,” cried Mrs. Severs, the quick color surging her face. “I am not very well, and he is so gentle and sweet to me. I—wish I had been more patient,—I am very lonely now. But we are great chums. He has taught me to play pinochle, and I fill his pipe for him. And onions aren’t so bad.”

“Hum,” thought Eveley, as she drove down-town. “You can’t suit some people, no matter how finely you adjust their difficulties.” Then she brightened. “Still, it is better to love each other in two houses, than to be bad friends in one,—as they were.”

That evening, she and Eileen stood at the station impatiently waiting,—having arrived at five-thirty, fearing the train might come ahead of time.

“Oh, Eveley,” Eileen wailed. “Suppose they should not like me?”

Eveley laughed at that. “Suppose you do not like them?” she parried.

“I do. I haven’t seen them for over two years, but they are adorable. They are seven now. The prettiest things,—long yellow curls, and—”

“Billy will probably be shaved by this time,—I mean barbered.”

“Oh, never. No one would cut off curls like his. Their hair will be longer I suppose, probably darker,—and Betty lisps and swallows while she is talking,—”

“Oh, she will be over that now.”

“In two years? Why, certainly not. They will be just the same, only more so.”

Eveley began to experience a curious internal sinking. Eileen was too deliriously optimistic about those children. They were angel babies, of course, for Eileen said so, but Eveley remembered Nathalie and Dan, angels, too,—but how they shouted and tore through the house. And they were always exhibiting fresh cuts and bruises, and Dan had insisted on the confiscation of his curls at four years. If Billy was still wearing curls at seven, he needed a tonic for he was not regular.

“Eileen,” she began very gently, “you—you mustn’t expect too many dimples and curls. Children are angels,—but they are funny, too. They are always bleeding, you know, and—”

“Bleeding!” gasped Eileen. “Agnes never mentioned bleeding! Do they always do it?”

“Always. They are always getting themselves smashed and scratched, and blood runs all over them, and gets matted in their hair, and their hands are constitutionally dirty, and—they always have at least one finger totally and irrevocably smashed. Some times it is two fingers, and once in a while a whole hand, but the average is one finger.”

Eileen looked at her friend in a most professional manner.

“I do not know if you are trying to be insulting, or just amusing, but I saw those children. I was right there for three weeks only two years ago, and they were always clean, they had curls, and they were certainly not smashed or I should have noticed it.”

“They shout, too, Eileen,” Eveley went on wretchedly, determined to prepare Eileen for the shock that was sure to follow. “They—they just whoop. And—”

“If you can not be a little pleasanter, dear, suppose you go and wait for me in the car. I am too nervous. I simply can not stand it.”

“I do not want to be unpleasant, and I shall not say another word. I just wanted to remind you of—of the shouting—and the blood.”

“One would think they were savages, Eveley, instead of my own sister’s little babies.”

“Here comes the train,” cried Eveley, and added in a soft whisper that Eileen could not hear, “Oh, please, for Eileen’s sake, let ’em have dimples and curls, and don’t get ’em smashed before the train stops.”

Hand in hand, with eager shining eyes, the girls ran along the platform, and when the porter put down his stool beneath the steps, the first thing that appeared was a small dimpled girl with golden curls, and a flower-like face beneath a flower-laden bonnet.

Eileen leaped upon her, catching her in her arms, and in her rapturous delight, she did not hear a small brusk voice exclaiming, “Oh, pooh, I don’t need your old stool.”

And she did not notice Eveley’s gasp,—for Eveley had seen a small sailor-clad form hurtle itself from the step and fall flat upon the gravel platform. It was not until a sudden lusty roar went up that Eileen remembered she had two babies en route. She dropped Betty like a flash, and turned.

The porter very grimly picked up the child, and held him out, and Eileen saw with horror that his face was fairly sandpapered from the fall, and blood was starting from a dozen tiny pricks.

“If this is yourn, for Gawd’s sake, take ’im,” begged the porter. “He’s fell off’n everything and into everything between here and Seattle.”

Eileen clung desperately to Betty’s moist hand.

“Don’t get scared, Auntie,” chirped the small bright voice. “Billy always falls into things, and he ain’t never broke anything yet,—himself, I mean, arms or legs or necks,—he breaks lots of dishes and vases and things like that.”

Eileen was stricken dumb, but Eveley took the writhing roaring boy from the porter’s hand, and dusted him lightly with her handkerchief.

“Why, where are your curls, Billy?” she demanded, hoping to distract his attention. And she succeeded only too well, for he stopped so suddenly in the midst of a loud wail that he almost choked. When he finally recovered his breath, he snorted derisively.

“Curls! Huh! I ain’t no girl. I ain’t got any curls. I never did have curls.”

“Oh, yes, you did,” she argued. “Two years ago you had beautiful, long golden curls just like Betty’s.”

Billy hunched up his shoulders and clenched a small brown fist.

“You got to say, ‘Excuse me for them words,’” he said belligerently. “Ain’t so, and you got to say it.”

Scenting battle, Eveley hastily muttered the desired words, and passed him over to Eileen.

Billy thrust out a sturdy hand, but to Eileen’s evident delight he refused to be kissed.

“Betty’s got to be whipped, Aunt Eileen,” he announced. “Aunt Agnes told me to tell you all she did on the train, and you would whip her. She stuck a pin in a fat man that was asleep,—that’s the man right there,—Say, didn’t Betty stick a pin in you?”

But the fat man gave them a venomous glare, and hurried away. “And she pulled the beads off of that blonde lady’s coat,—and if you don’t believe it, you can look in her pocket ’cause she’s got ’em yet. And she swiped a box of candy from that lady in the yellow suit, and the lady said the porter did it, and they had an awful fight. And she sang The Yanks Are Coming in the middle of the night and everybody swore something awful. And she wouldn’t eat anything but ice-cream at the table, and one meal she had five dishes.”

Eveley and Eileen had listened in fascinated silence during this recital of his sister’s wrongdoing. But Betty stuck a fat thumb between rosy lips, and drooped her eyes demurely behind her curling lashes.

“Did—you do all that, Betty?” demanded Eileen at last, very faintly.

“I did more than that,” she said proudly. “I put the pink lady’s bedroom slippers in a man’s traveling bag, and they haven’t found it out yet. And I slipped Billy’s wriggly lizard down the black lady’s neck, and she said a naughty word. And—”

“And what did Billy do?”

Betty’s lips curled with scorn. “Billy? He didn’t do anything. He’s too good. He don’t ever do anything.”

Billy advanced with the threatening hunch of his shoulders and clench of the brown fists.

“You say, ‘Excuse me for them words,’” he said in a low voice. “And say it quick.”

Betty jerked her finger from her mouth and mumbled rapidly in a voice of frightened nervousness, “Excuse me for them words, please excuse me for them words.” And then, as her brother’s shoulders relaxed, she sidled up to him, rubbing herself affectionately against his arm, and whispered, “Aw, Billy, I was only joking. You ain’t mad at me, are you?”

“Let’s go,” said Eileen. “I feel—faint.”

“Sticking pins is good for faintness,” said Betty hopefully. “I did it to Aunt Agnes twice when she nearly fainted, and she came to right away.”

“And she gave Betty a good whipping.”

“Yes, she did, and I only did it to cure her,” said Betty in an aggrieved voice.

“Let’s go fast,” begged Eileen. “Take your handkerchief, Billy, and see if you can wipe a little of the dirt and blood off your face.”

“He mustn’t do that,” interrupted Betty promptly. “Handkerchiefs is full of germs, and if he gets the germs in his scratches he gets blood poison and dies. You got to wait till you get home, Billy, and then lie on your back on Aunt Eileen’s bed, and she’ll take clean gauze and soak ’em off in cold water. If you haven’t got any gauze handy you can use mine, but you’d better buy some. Billy uses as much as a dollar’s worth of gauze in no time.”

Eileen put her hand over her face, and turned away. The children followed, looking about them in frank interest and pleasure.

“Is that a palm tree?” asked Betty. “Billy says God never made ’em grow like that. He says men just tie those fins on top to make ’em look funny. Did God do it, Aunt Eileen? What did He do it for?—Oh, is this your car, Aunt Eileen? Billy knows how to start a car so you better not let him in it by himself.” Then as the small boyish shoulders assumed the dreadful hunch, she cried excitedly, “Oh, no, he can’t either, honest he can’t. He doesn’t know what to turn, nor anything. I was joking. You ain’t mad at me, are you, Billy?”

Eveley slipped silently into her place behind the wheel, and Billy opened the door for his aunt and sister, banged it smartly after their entrance, and climbed in front with Eveley.

“They oughtn’t to let women drive cars,” he said in a judicial tone. “Women is too nervous. There ought to be a law against it.”

Eveley laughed. “I think so, too,” she agreed pleasantly. “But until there is such a law, I think I shall keep on driving.”

Billy stared at her suspiciously. “You don’t need to agree with me to be polite,” he said. “It won’t hurt my feelings any. I ain’t used to it, anyhow.”

Betty, in the rear seat, cuddled cozily against her rigid aunt and kept up a constant flow of conversation in her pretty chirpy voice.

“Are you an old maid? Aunt Agnes said you were. Did you do it on purpose, or couldn’t you help yourself? I am not going to be an old maid. I am engaged now. Billy tried to be engaged, too, but Freckle Harvey cut him out.”

Billy suddenly squared about in his seat, and Betty shivered into a small and terrified heap. “Aw, no, he didn’t either. Billy didn’t like her worth a cent. He thinks she is just hideous, don’t you, Billy? You ain’t mad at me, are you, Billy?”

When Eveley drew the car up before the big apartment-house on Sixth Street, Billy forgot his temporary burst of manners. With a hoarse shout he slid deftly over the door and dashed up the steps. Shrieking gleefully, Betty followed swiftly in his wake.

“Oh, Eveley,” faltered Eileen, “I am afraid they scratched the car.” She got out hastily, and caught her lips between her teeth as she saw the long jagged scratch on the door where Betty’s sharp heel had passed.

“Never mind,” said Eveley bravely. “It doesn’t make a bit of difference. We all know how children are.”

“I—I didn’t,” said Eileen weakly. “I—guess I am an old maid. I hadn’t realized it.”

In Betty’s extravagant delight over the new room, and Billy’s quiet but equally sincere pleasure, something of Eileen’s own enthusiasm returned, and although her ministrations upon Billy’s marred countenance, performed under the critical and painstaking eye of Sister Betty, left her weak-kneed and pale, she took her place at the table with something very much akin to pleasure, if it were not the jubilant delight she had anticipated.

Eveley went home immediately after dinner, stopping on her way for Nolan. They spent an uproarious hour over her account of the twins and their reception. And at last, weak with laughter, Eveley wiped her eyes, and said with deep sympathy:

“Poor Eileen! And the twins are adorable. But I believe one needs to be born with children and grow up with them gradually. For when they spring upon you full grown they are—well, they are certainly a shock.”