As spring came on, and I found myself fairly identified with the life of Friendship,--or, at any rate, "more one of us," as they said,--I suggested to Calliope something which had been for some time pleasantly in my mind: might I, I asked one day, give a tea for her? "A tea!" she repeated. "For _me_? You know they give me a benefit once in the basement of the Court House. But a private tea, for me?" And when she understood that this was what I meant, "Oh," she said earnestly, "I'd be so glad to come. An' you an' I can know the tea is for me--if you rilly mean it--but it won't do to say it so'd it'd get out around. Oh, no, it won't. Not one o' the rest'll come near if you give it _for_ me--nor if you give it _for_ anybody. Mis' Proudfit, now, she tried to give a noon lunch on St. Patrick's day for Mis' Postmaster Sykes, an' the folks she ask' to it got together an' sent in their regrets. 'We're just as good as Mis' Postmaster Sykes,' they give out to everybody, 'an' we don't bow down to her like that.' So Mis' Proudfit she calls it a Shamrock Party an' give it a day later. An' every one of 'em went. It won't do to say it's _for_ me." So I contented myself with planning to seat Calliope at the foot of my table, and I found a kind of happiness in her child-like content, though only we two knew that the occasion would do her honour. If Delia had been available we would have told her, but Delia was still in Europe, and would not return until June. Calliope was quite radiant when, on the afternoon of the tea, she arrived in advance of the others. She was wearing her best gray henrietta, and I noted that she had changed her cameo ring from her first to her third finger. ("First-finger rings seem to me more everyday," she had once said to me, "but third-finger I always think looks real dressy.") She was carrying a small parcel. "You didn't ask to borrow anything," she said shyly; "I didn't know how you'd feel about that, a stranger so. An' we all got together--your company, you know--an' found out you hadn't borrowed anything from any of us, an' we thought maybe you hesitated. So we made up I should bring my spoons. They was mother's, an' they're thin as weddin' rings--an' solid. Any time you want to give a company you're welcome to 'em." When I had laid the delicate old silver in its place, I found Calliope standing in the middle of my living-room, looking frankly about on my simple furnishings, her eyes lingering here and there almost lovingly.