"Well, then one year, when she come home from off to school, this young clerk followed her. I only see 'em together once--he only stayed a day an' had his terrible time with Jason Proudfit an' everybody knew it--but even with seein' 'em that once, I knew about him. I don't care who he was or what he was worth--he was lit up, too. I donno why he was a clerk nor anything of him--excep' that the lit kind ain't always the money-makers--but he could talk to her her way. An' when I see the four of 'em drive up in front of the post-office the day he come, Mis' Proudfit an' Clementina talkin' all soft an' interested an' regular about the foreign postage stamps they was buyin', an' Linda an' him sittin' there with foreign lands fair livin' in their eyes--I knew how it would be. An' so it was. They went off, Linda with only the clothes she was wearin' an' none of her stone rings or like that with her. An' see what it all done--see what it done. Jason Proudfit, he wouldn't forgive 'em nor wouldn't hear a word from 'em, though they say Mis' Linda wrote, at first, an' more than once. An' then when he died two years or so afterwards, an' Mis' Proudfit tried everywhere--they wa'n't no trace. An' no wonder, with a differ'nt name so's nobody should find out how poor they was--an' death--an' like enough prison...." Calliope stood up, and in the pause Peleg's axe went rhythmically on. "I'm goin' to be sure," she said. "I hate to--but o' course I've got to be rill certain, in words." She went out to the shed, taking with her the photograph, and closed the door. Peleg's axe ceased. And when she came back, she said nothing at all for a little, and the axe did not go on. "We mustn't tell Mis' Proudfit--yet," she put it, presently, "not till we can think. I donno's we ever can tell her. The dyin'--an' the disgrace--an' the other name--an' the hurt about Linda's _needin' things_ ... Peleg thinks not tell her, too." "At least," I said, "we can wait, for a little. Until they come home." I listened while, her task long disregarded, Calliope fitted together the dates and the meagre facts she knew, and made the sad tally complete. Then she laid the picture by and stood staring at the cooking-range flame. "It ain't enough," she said, "bein'--lit up--ain't enough for folks, is it? Not without they're some made out o' iron, too, to hold it--like stoves. An' yet--" She looked at me with one of her infrequent, passionate doubtings in her eyes. "--if Mis' Proudfit an' Clementina had just of been lit too," she said, "mebbe--" She got no farther, though I think it was not the opening of the door by Peleg Bemus that interrupted her. Peleg did not come in. He said something of the snow on his shoes, and spoke through the door's opening. "I'm a-goin to quit work for to-day, Mis' Marsh," he told her. "Seems like I'm too dead tired to chop." XV THE TEA PARTY