ere such a matter-of-course federation on any
boulevard?) And after the guests had been served and the talk had been
resumed, we four who had "handed" sat down, with Mrs. Ricker and Kitton,
at meat, at a corner of the kitchen table.

"Everything tastes like so much chips to me when I hev company, anyhow,"
the hostess said sadly, "but to-night it's got the regular salt-pork
taste. When I'm nervous or got delegates or comin' down with anything, I
always taste salt pork."

"Well, everything's all of a whirl to me," Calliope confessed, "an' I
should think your brains, Mis' Ricker, 'd be fair rarin' 'round in your
head."

"Who didn't eat what?" Mrs. Ricker and Kitton asked listlessly. "I meant
to keep track when the plates come out, but I didn't. Did they all take
a-hold rill good?"

"They wa'n't any mincin' 't _I_ see," Mis' Holcomb-that-was-Mame-Bliss
assured her. "Everything you had was lovely, an' everybody made 'way
with all they got."

We might have kept indefinitely on at these fascinating comparisons, but
some unaccountable stir and bustle and rise of talk in the other rooms
persuaded our attention. ("Can they be goin' _home_?" cried that great
Mis' Amanda Toplady. "If they are, I'll go bail Timothy Toplady started
it." And, "I bet they've broke the finger bowl," Mrs. Ricker and Kitton
prophesied darkly.) And then we all went in to see what had happened,
but it was what none of us could possibly have forecast: Crowding in the
parlour, overflowing into the sitting room, still entering from the
porch, were Postmaster and Mis' Postmaster Sykes and _all_ their guests.

It was quite as if Wishes had gathered head and spirited them there. I
remember the white little face of Mrs. Ricker and Kitton, luminously
gratified to the point of triumph; and Mis' Sykes's brisk and cordial
"No reason why we shouldn't go to two receptions in an evening, like
they do in the City, Mis' Ricker, is they?" And the aplomb of the
hostess's self-respecting, corrective "_An'_ Kitton. 'Count of Al bein'
so thoughtful in death." And then to my amazement Mis' Postmaster Sykes
turned to me and held out both hands.

"I _am_ so _glad_," she said, almost in the rhythm of certain exhausts,
"that you've decided to hev Sodality at your house. You must just let me
take a-hold of it for you and _run_ it. And I'm going to propose your
name the very next meeting we hev, can't I?"

* * * * *

I walked home with Calliop