"Just five years," replied Abby, unruffled, "and she had chances,
and I know it."

"Why didn't she take them, then?"

"Maybe," said Abby, "girls had choice then as much as now, but I
never could make out why she didn't marry Harry Lawton."

Ethel gave her head a toss. "Maybe," said she, "once in a while,
even so long ago, a girl wasn't so crazy to get married as folks
thought. Maybe she didn't want him."

"She did want him," said Abby. "A girl doesn't get so pale and
peaked-looking for nothing as Eudora Yates did, after she had
dismissed Harry Lawton and he had gone away, nor haunt the
post-office as she used to, and, when she didn't get a letter, go
away looking as if she would die."

"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 set in her. She would never have opposed her if she had
wanted to marry a foreign duke or the old Harry himself."

"I remember it perfectly," said Mrs. Joseph Glynn.

"So do I," said Julia Esterbrook.