more
backwards than ridin' to the cemet'ry feet first. What's what all
depends on what you agree on for What. If it ain't your soul you mean
about," she added cryptically.

The Topladys and others of us who united to uphold Emerel, and
especially to uphold Emerel's mother, could not but realize that the
majority of Friendship society had regretted to decline the debut party,
and had been pleased to accept the hospitality of the Postmaster
Sykeses. I dare say that this may have been partly why, in the usual
self-indulgence of challenge, I put on my prettiest frock for the party
and prepared to set out somewhat early, hoping for the amusement of
sharing in the finishing touches. But as I was leaving my house Calliope
Marsh arrived, buttoned tightly in her best gray henrietta, her cheeks
hot with some intense excitement.

"Well," she said without preface, "they've done it. Emerel Kitton's
married. She's just married Abe at the parsonage to get out o' bein'
debooed. They've gone to take the train now."

No one could fail to see what this would mean to Mrs. Ricker and Kitton,
and, rather than the newly married Emerel, it was she who absorbed our
speculation.

"Mis' Ricker just slimpsed," Calliope told me. "I says to her: 'Look
here, Mis' Ricker, don't you go givin' in. Your kitchen's a sight with
the good things o' your hand--think o' that,' I told her; 'think how you
mortgaged your very funeral for to-night, an' brace yourself up,' An'
she says, awful pitiful: 'I _can't_, Calliope,' she says. ''T seems like
this slips the pins right out. They ain't nothin' to deboo with now,
anyway,' she told me. 'How can I?'"

"Oh, poor Mrs. Ricker!" I exclaimed.

Calliope looked at me intently.

"Well," she said, "that's what I run in about. You're a stranger just
fresh come here. You ain't met folks much yet. An' Mis' Sykes, she's
just crazy to get a-hold o' you an' your house for the Sodality. An' the
only thing I could think of for Mis' Ricker--well, would you stand up
with Mis' Ricker to-night an' shake all their hands? An' sort o' leave
her deboo for _you_, you might say?"

I think that I loved Calliope for this even before she understood my
assent. But she added something which puzzled me.

"If I was you," she observed, "I'd do somethin' else to-night, too. You
could do it--or I could do it for you. You don't expect to let Mis'
Sykes hev the Sodality here, do you?"

"I might have had it here," I said impulsively, "if s