"Girls!" said Julia decisively. "A big family of girls."
"Then," Lulu began, and a question trembled in her bright eyes and on
her curved lips.
But, "Here's Peachy!" Julia exclaimed before she could go on.
Peachy came toiling up the path, pulling herself along, both hands on
the wooden rail. She tottered, but in spite of her snail-like progress,
it was evident that she hurried. A tiny bundle hung between her
shoulders. It oscillated gently with her haste.
"Let me take Angela," Julia said as Peachy struggled over the threshold.
"Wait!" Peachy panted. She sank on a couch.
There was a strange element in her look, an overpowering eagerness. This
eagerness had brimmed over into her manner; it vibrated in her trembling
voice, her fluttering hands. She sat down. She reached up and lifted the
baby from her shoulders to her lap. Angela still slept, a delicate bud
of a girl-being. But Peachy gave her audience no time to study the
sleeping face. She turned the baby over. She pulled the single light
garment off. Then she looked up at the other women.
The little naked figure lay in the golden sunlight, translucent, like an
angel carved in alabaster. But on the shoulder-blades lay shadow, deep
shadow - no, not shadow, a fluff of feathery down.
"Wings!" Peachy said. "My little girl is going to fly!"
"Wings!" the others repeated. "Wings!"
And then the room seemed to fill with tears that ended in laughter, and
laughter that ended in tears.