"The whole upper hall was dark, like puttin' a black skirt on over your head. But the room we went in was cheerful, with a fire burnin' up. Only it was awful littered up--old newspapers layin' round, used glasses settin' here an' there, water-pitcher empty, an' the lamp-chimney was smoked up, even. The woman said somethin' about us an' went out an' left us with somebody settin' in a big chair by the fire, sick an' wrapped up. An' when we looked over there, Calliope an' I stopped still. It was a man. "If it'd been me, I'd 'a' turned round an' got out. But Calliope was as brave as two, an' she spoke up. "'This must be the invalid,' she says, cheerful. 'We hope we see you at the best.' "The man stirs some an' looks over at us kind o' eager--he was oldish, an' the firelight bein' in his eyes, he couldn't see us. "'It isn't anybody to see me, is it?' he asks. "At that Calliope steps forward--I remember how she looked in her pretty gray dress with some light thing over her head, an' her starched white skirts was rustlin' along under, soundin' so genteel she seemed to me like strangers do. When he see her, the man made to get up, but he was too weak for it. "'Why, yes,' she answers him, 'if you're well enough to see anybody.' "An' at that the man put his hands on his knees an' leaned sort o' hunchin' forward. "'Calliope!' he says. "It was him, sure enough--Calvert Oldmoxon. Same big, wide-apart, lonesome eyes an' kind o' crooked frown. His hair was gray, an' so was his pointed beard, an' he was crool thin. But I'd 'a' known him anywheres. "Calliope, she just stood still. But when he reached out his hand, his lips parted some like a child's an' his eyes lookin' up at her, she went an' stood near him, by the table, an' she set her basket there an' leaned down on the handle, like her strength was gone. "'I never knew it was you here,' she says. 'Nobody knows,' she told him. "'No,' he says, 'I've done my best they shouldn't know. Up till I got sick. Since then--I--wanted folks,' he says. "I kep' back by the door, an' I couldn't take my eyes off of him. He was older than Calliope, but he had a young air. Like you don't have when you stay in Friendship. An' he seemed to know how to be easy, sick as he was. An' that ain't like Friendship, either. He an' Calliope had growed opposite ways, seems though. "'I'll go now,' says Calliope, not lookin' at him. 'I brought up some things I baked. I didn't know but they'd taste good to whoever was sick here.' "With that he covers one hand over his eyes. "'No,' he says, 'no, no, Calliope--don't go yet. It's you I come here to Friendship to see,' he told her. "'What could you have to say to me?' asks Calliope--dry as a bone in her voice, but I see her eyes wasn't so dry. Leastwise, it may not have been her eyes, but it was her look.