lenty o' cheese?" she demanded.

"Sounds like it'd go down awful easy," admitted Calliope, smiling. "It's
just what we need to carry the dinner off full sail," she added
earnestly.

"Well, I ain't nothin' else to do an' I'll make 'em," Mis' Holcomb
promised. "Only it beats me who you can find to do for. If you don't get
anybody, let me know before I order the oysters."

Calliope stood up, her little wrinkled face aglow; and I wondered at her
confidence.

"You just go ahead an' order your oysters," she said. "That dinner's
goin' to come off Thanksgivin' noon at twelve o'clock. An' you be there
to help feed the hungry, Mame."

When we were on the street again, Calliope looked at me with her way of
shy eagerness.

"Could you hev the dinner up to your house," she asked me, "if I do
every bit o' the work?"

"Why, Calliope," I said, amazed at her persistence, "have it there, of
course. But you haven't any guests yet."

She nodded at me through the falling flakes.

"You say you ain't got much to be thankful for," she said, "so I thought
mebbe you'd put in the time that way. Don't you worry about folks to eat
the dinner. I'll tell Mis' Holcomb an' the others to come to your
house--an I'll get the food an' the folks. Don't you worry! An' I'll
bring my watermelon pickles an' a bowl o' cream for Mis' Holcomb's
potatoes, an' I'll furnish the turkey--a big one. The rest of us'll get
the dinner in your kitchen Thanksgivin' mornin'. My!" she said, "seems
though life's smoothin' out fer me a'ready. Good-by--it's 'most noon."

She hurried up Daphne Street in the snow, and I turned toward my lonely
house. But I remember that I was planning how I would make my table
pretty, and how I would add a delicacy or two from the City for this
strange holiday feast. And I found myself hurrying to look over certain
long-disused linen and silver, and to see whether my Cloth-o'-Gold rose
might be counted on to bloom by Thursday noon.

IV

COVERS FOR SEVEN

"We'll set the table for seven folks," said Calliope, at my house on
Thanksgiving morning.

"Seven!" I echoed. "But where in the world did you ever find seven,
Calliope?"

"I found 'em," she answered. "I knew I could find hungry folks to do for
if I tried, an' I found 'em. You'll see. I sha'n't say another word.
They'll be here by twelve, sharp. Did the turkey come?"

Yes, the turkey had come, and almost as she spoke the dear Liberty
sisters arrived to dress and stuff i