"'I was afraid you'd all stay,' he says, 'and I do want all the pan-cakes. Hurry on--you're keeping back our supper.' "He nodded to Alex, smiled with us, and come and saw us out the door. Mis' Cadoza come too, and Robin and I shook hands with her for goodnight. And as Mis' Cadoza stood there in her own door, seeing us off, and going to be hostess out in her own kitchen, I wondered to myself if it was having a collar on, or what it was, that give her a kind of pretty near dignity. "I got in the front seat of the car. Chris was back in the tonneau between Robin and Alex, and as we started he tried to tell Alex what had happened. "'My--my--my daddy----' he says. "'Poor little cuss,' says Alex. 'But how extremely well for the child, Robin, that the beggar died. Heavens, how I hate your going in these ghastly places. My poor Robin, what an experience for _to-night_! For our to-night....' "She made a sudden move, abrupt as a bird springing free of something that's holding it. She spoke low, but I heard every word of it. "'Alex,' she said, 'we've made a mistake, you and I. But it isn't too late to mend it now.' XII "'I hope, Calliope,' said Postmaster Silas Sykes to me, 'that you ain't in favour of women suffrage.' "'No, Silas,' says I, 'I ain't.' "And I felt all over me a kind of a nice wild joy at saying a thing that I knew a male creature would approve of. "Silas was delivering the groceries himself that day, and accepting of a glass of milk in my kitchen doorway. And on my kitchen stoop Letty Ames--that had come home in time for the Proudfit party--was a-sitting, a-stitching away on a violet muslin breakfast-cap. It was the next day after the party and my regular wash-day and I was glad to be back in my own house, washing quiet, with Emerel Daniel to help me. "'At school,' says Letty, 'everybody was for it.' "'I know it,' says Silas, gloomy. 'The schools is goin' to the dogs, hot-foot. Women suffrage, tinkerin' pupils' teeth, cremation--I don't know what-all their holdin' out for. In my day they stuck to 'rithmetic and toed the crack.' "'That isn't up to date, Mr. Sykes,' says Letty, to get Silas riled. "It done it. He waved his left arm, angular. "'Bein' up to date is bein' up to the devil,' he begun, raspish, when I cut in, hasty and peaceful. "'By the way, Silas,' I says, 'speaking of dates, it ain't more'n a _year_ past the time you aldermen was going to clear out Black Hollow, is it? Ain't you going to get it done _this_ spring?' "'Oh, dum it, no,' Silas says. 'They're all after us now to get to pavin' that new street.' "'That street off there in the marsh. I know they are,' I says innocent. 'Your cousin's makin' the blocks, ain't he, Silas?' "Just then, in from the shed where she was doing my washing come Emerel Daniel--a poor little thing that looked like nothing but breath with the skin drawn over it--and she was crying.