In our desire to be of tardy service we did the most absurd things. We took possession of the kitchen, rejoicing that we found the supper dishes uncared for, and we heated a great kettle of water, and washed and wiped and put away, as softly as we could; and then we "brushed up around." I think that only the need of silence kept us from cleaning windows. When the nurse appeared--who had arrived that day unknown of Friendship--we sprang as one to do her bidding. We sent the little maid to bed, we tidied the living room, walking tiptoe, and then we went back through the kitchen and sat down on the little side "stoop." And all this time we had addressed one another only about the tasks which we had in hand. After a little silence, "The milkman was quite late this morning," observed Mis' Holcomb. "Well, he's begun to deliver in cans instead o' bottles," Mis' Sykes explained; "it takes him some longer to get around. He says bottles makes his wife just that much more to do." Then we fell silent again. It was Calliope, sitting on the porch step outside, where it was dark, who at last had the courage to be articulate. "I hope--I _hope_," she said, "she's goin' to be all right." Mis' Sykes shaded her eyes from the bracket lamp within. "I'll go bail," she said, "that little you-do-as-I-say chin'll carry her through. I'm glad she's got it." Just then we heard the thin crying of the child and we could divine Calliope, that on the step where she sat she was hugging her arms and rocking somewhat, to and fro. "Like enough," she said, "oh, like enough--folks ain't so cramped about runnin' their own feelin's as they think they are!" To this we murmured something indefinite in sound but positive enough in sense. And we all knew what we all knew. "Let's go out around the house to the front gate," said that great Mis' Amanda Toplady, abruptly. "Have any of you ladies got two handkerchiefs?" "I've got two," said Mis' Postmaster Sykes, "an' I ain't used either one. Do you want the one with essence or the one without?" "I ain't partial," said Mis' Amanda. We rose and stumbled along the grassy path that led round the house. At the gate we met Doctor Heron. "Well," he said slowly, "well." And after a moment, "Will--will any of you be here in the morning?" he asked. "Yes," we all said simply. "That's good," he commented shortly, "I didn't know." We five had to separate at the first corner to go our home ways, and we stood for a moment under the gas-light. I remember how, just then, Peter's father came singing past us, like one of the Friendship family who did not understand his kinship. Even as we five had not understood ours. "You haven't got a shawl, hev you?" Mis' Sykes said to me solicitously. "The nights have been some chilly on a person's shoulders for a day or two now," said Mis' Holcomb. Calliope put her hand up quickly to her throat.