r, I am certain that the project in which I
implored her help would be sunk in my sudden sense of Olympus.

Not the less, I made my somewhat remarkable proposal with some show of
assurance, and I should have counted on Mis' Toplady's sympathy, which
ripens at less than a sigh. In Friendship you but mention a possible
charity, visit, or new church carpet, and the enthusiasm will react on
the possibility, and the thing be done. It is the spirit of the West,
the pioneer blood in the veins of her children, expressing itself (since
there are of late no forests to conquer) in terms of love of any
initiative. We love a project as an older world would approve the
civilizing reasons for that project. Mis' Amanda plunged into the
processes of the party much as she would have felled a tree. It warmed
my heart to hear her.

"We'd ought to hev a hot supper--what victuals'll we take?" she said.
"Land, yes, oysters, o' course, an' we'll all chip in an' take
plenty-enough crackers. We might as well carry dishes from here, so's to
be sure an' hev what we want to use. At Mis' Doctor Helman's su'prise we
run 'way short o' spoons, an' Elder Woodruff finally went out in the
hall an' drank his broth, an' hid his bowl in the entry. Mis' Helman
found it, an' knew it by the nick. That reminds me--who'll we ask?"

"Mrs. Holcomb-that-was-Mame-Bliss," said I, promptly, "and Abigail
Arnold, and Doctor June, and Abel Halsey."

"An' the Proudfits," Mis' Amanda went on.

"Suppose," said I, with high courage, "that we do not ask the Proudfits
at all?"

Mis' Amanda threw up her giant hands.

"Not ask the Proudfits?" she said. "Why, my land a' livin', the minister
hardly has church in the church without the Proudfits get an invite."

"Calliope mends their fine lace for them," I reminded her, feeling
guilty. "They wouldn't care to come, Mrs. Amanda, would they?"

But of course I was remembering Delia More's "But _now_--I know 'em.
They worship goodness like a little god." And that night I was not
minded to have them about, for it might befall that it would be
necessary to understand other things as well.

"Miss Linda would 'a' cared to," said Mis' Amanda, thoughtfully, "but I
donno, myself, about Mis' Proudfit an' Miss Clementina--for sure."

So bold an innovation as the Proudfits' omission, however, moved Timothy
Toplady to doubt.

"They might not come," he said, frowning and looking sidewise, "but what
I think is this, will they like bein'