CHAPTER XXVI

That fall after Grace went away to school, John’s and Eloise’s first child was born. “You’ll want me to come, won’t you?” Abbie had asked Eloise with her usual desire to be helpful. “Oh, no,” Eloise had said hastily,—a little too hastily. “John wants me to have a _trained_ nurse,—the very best.” Little hurts! Little pleasures! How they made up the whole of Abbie Deal’s life. Eloise named the boy Wentworth, and proceeded to bring him up by the ritual of a red volume in which she held implicit and humorless faith. “I…