for me?"

I love to recall the bustle of that arriving and how, as the motor came
up the drive, Mis' Holcomb-that-was-Mame-Bliss and Mis' Amanda ran down
on the gravel and waved their aprons; and how Mis' Postmaster Sykes and
Mis' Mayor Uppers and Mis' Photographer Sturgis, having heard the
machine pass their doors, had issued forth and followed it and arrived
at the Proudfits' with:

"I was right in the midst of a basque, cuttin' over an old lining, but I
told Liddy Ember: 'You rip on. I've _got_ to run over.' Excuse my looks.
Well said! Back!"

And, "Got here, did you? My, my, all tired out, I expect. Well, mebbe
you think we won't feel relieved to see the house open again an' folks
in it flyin' round. An' you look as natural as the first thunder-storm
in the spring o' the year!"

And, "Every day for two weeks," Mis' Sturgis said, "I've said to Jimmy:
'Proudfits back?' 'No, sir,' s'he, 'not back yet.' An' so it went. Could
you sleep any on the sleeper?"

Then Calliope and Mis' Toplady and Mis' Holcomb and the three newcomers
hurried all but abreast to the kitchen to "see what they could find";
and when Mis' Proudfit and Miss Clementina and Delia More had taken
their places at the burdened table, we all sat about the edge of the
room--no one would share in the feast, every one having to "get right
back"--and asked of the journey, and gave news of Friendship Village in
the long absence. I love to remember it all, but I think that I love
best to remember their delicate acceptance of what that day had brought
to me. Of this no one said a word, nor did they ask me anything, or seem
to observe, far less to wonder. But when they passed me, one and another
and another squeezed my hand or patted my arm or gave me their unwonted
"dear."

"What gentlefolk they are," my stranger said.

"Noon lunch" was finished, and I had seen Calliope go with Madame
Proudfit to the library and close the door, and we were all gathered in
the hall, where Miss Clementina had opened a trunk and was showing us
some pretty things, when some one else crossed the veranda and appeared
in the doorway. And there was Abel, come with my wild roses.

I do not think, however, that it can have occurred to Abel that I was in
the room. Nor that any of the others were there, intent on the pretty
things of Miss Clementina's trunk. But, his face shining, he went
straight to Delia More; and he laid my roses in her arms, looking at her
the while with a look