t eagerness to help, to be friends
again!... And then it was time for her to make ready for luncheon
herself. One-thirty o'clock; a long day....

In the May-time, once, Hugo had asked her to name a day, and she had
named the seventeenth of October. And now the seventeenth was here,
to-day. Her wedding-day it might have been, but for this or that: and
behold, her high banquet was laid at the board of the Cooneys, cold
corned beef and baked potatoes, with sliced peaches such as turn nicely
from the can for an unexpected guest.

Cally was glad to be with her cousins to-day. The simple and friendly
atmosphere here was mightily comfortable. Never had they seemed so poor
to her, never so fine and merry in their poverty. Her heart went out
to them.

They were all well now, the Cooneys, and the table was their
clearing-house. There was much talk, of the new Works and other matters;
great argument. Two faces were missing: Tee Wee, who pursued his studies
at the University, and Chas, who was lunching from a box at his desk,
snowed under with work accumulated during his sickness. In their places,
however, sat Cousin Martha Heth, who was described as "very miserable"
with her various ailments, but whose strength at conversation, regarding
symptoms, seemed as the strength of ten.

Round Cally the Cooney talk rattled on; family jokes kept flickering
up; strange catchwords evoked unexpected laughter. The woman of all work
waited spasmodically upon the table; she proved to be Lugene, none other
than the girl Hen and Cally had found on Dunbar Street, that day long
ago.... Old times; so, too, when the Major told with accustomed verve
how papa, a little shaver then, had brought the note from Aunt Molly
down to camp, fifty years ago....

Across the table sat Looloo, the best-looking of all the good-looking
Cooneys. She had lucid gray eyes, with the prettiest black lashes; and
Cally found herself continually looking at them.... Strange how
expressive eyes could be, how revealing, looking things unspoken that
influenced one's whole life. Imagine somebody with eyes something like
Looloo's, say, to have had totally different ones; small, glassy black
eyes like shoe-buttons, for instance, or to have worn thick blue-tinged
glasses, like Evey's grandmother....

A hand waved before her own eyes; a voice of raillery said: "Come back!"

"I'm right here.... What did you say?"

"You were picking flowers ten thousand miles away. 'Cause why? 'N