left out?"

His masterful Amanda instantly took the other side.

"Land, Timothy!" she said, "you _be_ one!"

I have heard her say that to him again and again, and always in a tone
so skilfully admiring that he looked almost gratified. And we mentioned
the Proudfits no more.

So Calliope Marsh's surprise party came about. When supper was over, the
table was "left setting," while pickles and cookies and "conserve" were
packed in baskets; and presently the Topladys and I were stealing about
the village inviting to festivity. I love to remember how swiftly Daphne
Street took on an air of the untoward. Kitchens were left dark,
unaccustomed lights flashed in upper chambers, some went scurrying for
oysters before the post-office store should be closed, and some spread
the news, eager to share in the holiday importance. I love to remember
our certainty, so reasonably established, that they would all join us as
infallibly as children will join in jollity. No one refused, no one
hesitated; and when, at eight o'clock, the Topladys and I reached the
rendezvous in the Engine-House entry, every one was there before
us--save only, of course, the Proudfits.

"Where's the Proudfits? Ain't we goin' to wait for the Proudfits?" asked
more than one; and some one had seen the Proudfit motor come flashing
through the town from the Plank Road, empty. At all of which I kept a
guilty silence; and I had by then not a little guilt to bear, since I
was becoming every moment more doubtful of my undertaking. For at heart
these people are the kindly of earth, and yet they are prone, as Delia
More had said of the Proudfits, "to worship goodness like a little god,"
nor do they commonly broaden their allegiance without distinguished
precedent. And how were we to secure this?

Every one was there--the little gray Doctor June, flitting about as
quietly as a moth, and all those of whom Delia More had asked me: Mis'
Holcomb-that-was-Mame-Bliss, wearing her cloak wine broadcloth side out
to honour the occasion; Abigail Arnold, with a huge basket of
gingerbread and jumbles from her home bakery; Photographer Jimmy
Sturgis, and even Mis' Sturgis, in a faint aroma of caraway which she
nibbled incessantly; Liddy Ember, and poor Ellen, wearing her
magnificent hair like a coronet, and standing wistfully about, with her
hand, palm outward, persistently covering her mouth; and Abel Halsey,
who was to leave at midnight for a lonely cross-country ride into the
h