Eugenia wavered and stood irresolute.  Delphy’s authority, rooted in superior knowledge, appeared to be unshakable, but she made a last desperate effort.  “Suppose he should get sick without me, Delphy?”

Delphy positively snorted.  “Ef you wanter raise dis yer chile, Miss Euginny,” she replied, “you’d des better let me alont.  Hit’s a won’er you ain’ been de deaf er him ‘fo’ I got yer wid yo’ sto’ physicks en yo’ real doctahs es dunno one baby f’om anur when dey meet ’im in de street.  I reckon, ef he’d got de colic you’d have kilt ‘im terreckly, you en yo’ sto’ physicks en yo’ real doctahs!  Now, you’d des better dress yo’se’f an’ go down yonder ter de parlour.”

But as she finished Dudley strolled in and stood beaming down upon his offspring as it lay, round and pinkly impressive, in Delphy’s lap.  “Fine boy, eh, Delphy?” he inquired proudly.

“Dat ‘tis, suh,” responded Delphy heartily, “an’ he’s des de spit er you dis we’y minit.”

The following morning Dudley went to Washington for several days, and Eugenia was left with Miss Chris and the child.  Lottie and the little girls were with Bernard, who was dragging to a tedious end in Florida, where he had been ordered as a last resource.  Poor, pretty, ineffectual Lottie had succumbed to the unrelenting pressure of her duty.  She had sacrificed herself from sheer lack of the force necessary to withstand fate.

During Dudley’s absence Eugenia gave herself up to as much of the baby as Delphy grudgingly allowed her, sewing, in the long intervals, on tiny slips as delicate as cobwebs.  Even this occupation was not wholly a peaceful one.  “Des wait twel he begin ter crawl, en’ den whar’l dose spider webs be?” propounded Delphy in the afternoon of the third day.  “Dey’ll be in de ash-ba’r’l er at de back er de fireplace, en dat’s whar dey b’long.  Marse Dudley ain’ never wo’ no sech trash ner is you yo’se’f.”

Eugenia did not respond.  She seated herself beside the window, and with one eye on her child and one on her work sewed silently, her white hands gleaming amid the laces in her lap.  The training of her slave-holding ancestors was strong upon her, and she regarded Delphy’s liberty of speech as an inherent right of her position.  The Battle servants had always spoken their minds to their mistresses in a manner which caused them to become hopeless failures when they hired themselves into strange families, where the devotion of their lives could not be offered in extenuation of the freedom of their tongues.

So when Eugenia spoke, after a placid pause, it was merely to suggest that the baby’s head was hanging too far over Delphy’s knee.  “That can’t be healthful, Delphy,” she said, half timidly.  Delphy grunted and adjusted matters with a protest.  “Hit’s de way yourn done hung en Miss Meely’s done hung befo’ you,” she muttered.  Eugenia turned to the window and looked out upon the back yard, where the horse-chestnut tree was a mass of bloom, delicate as a cloud.  In the beds below, roses were out in red and white, and against the gray wall of the stable at the end of the brick walk purple flags were flaunting in the shadow.  Across the city, beyond the tin roofs and the chimney-pots, the sun was going down in a mist as sheer as gauze, and the surrounding atmosphere was charged with opalescent lights.