ills. And as they stood, gossiping and eager, the women bird-observant
of one another's toilettes, I own myself to have felt like an alien
among them, remembering how I alone knew that Calliope Marsh was not
even in the village.

Very softly we lifted the latch of Calliope's gate and trooped in her
little dark yard.

"Blisterin' Benson!" Timothy Toplady whispered, "ef the house hain't
pocket-dark, front _and_ back. What ef she's went in the country?"

"Sh--h!" whispered his great Amanda, masterfully. "It's the shades down.
I'm nervous as a witch. My land! if the front door ain't open a foot!"

Though there are no locked doors in Friendship, I had feared that
Calliope's cottage door would now be barred, and that Delia More would
answer no formal summons. At sight of the unguarded entrance I had a
sick fear that she had in some way heard of our coming and fled away,
leaving the door ajar in her haste. But when we had footed softly across
the porch and peered in the dark passage, we saw at its farther end a
crack of light.

"Might as well step ri' down to the dinin' room--that's where she sets,"
Mis' Amanda said in her whisper, which is gigantic too.

The passage smelled of the oilcloth on the floor and of a rubber
waterproof which I brushed. And I shrank back beside the waterproof and
let the others go on. For, after all, to that woman within I was a
stranger, and these were her friends of old time. So it was Mis' Amanda
who opened the dining-room door.

I could see that the room was cheery with a red-shaded hanging-lamp, and
shelves of plants, and a glowing fire in the great range. A table was
covered with red cotton and laid with dishes. Also, there was the
fragrance of toast, so that one wished to enter. And in a rocking-chair
sat Delia More. She stared up in a kind of terror at the open door, and
then turned shrinkingly to some one who sat beside her. But at that one
beside her I looked and looked again, for her rich fur cloak had fallen
where she had let it fall; and there, sitting with Delia More's hand in
hers, was that great Madame Proudfit of the Proudfit estate.

"For the land!" Mis' Amanda said. "For the land...."

But she was not looking at Madame Proudfit. And hardly seeing her, as I
could guess, that great Mis' Amanda went forward, holding out her arms.

"Delia More!" she cried, "Delia More!"

I saw Abel Halsey's pale, luminous face as he pushed past Timothy and
strode within and crossed to her;