And then she got the word that her cousin was actually flesh-an’-blood coming. I run in to Mis’ Merriman’s on my way home from town just after Harriet had brought her up the letter, and Mis’ Merriman was all of a heap in the big chair. “Calliope,” she says, “the blow is down! Maria Carpenter is a-comin’ Tuesday to stay till Friday.” “Well,” I says, “ain’t you glad, Mis’ Fire Chief? Company ain’t no great chore now the telephone is in,” I says to calm her. She looked up at me, sad, over her glasses. “What good is it to have her come?” she says. “I can’t show her off. There won’t be a livin’ place I can take her to. Nobody’ll see her nor none of her clothes.” “It’s too bad,” I says absent, “it didn’t happen so’s you could give a company for Miss Carpenter.” Mis’ Fire Chief burst out like her feelings overflowed themselves. “It’s what I’ve always planned,” she says. “Many a night I’ve laid awake an’ thought about the company I’d give when Maria come. An’ Maria never could come. An’ now here is Maria all but upon me, an’ the company can’t be. I know she’ll bring a dress, expectin’ it. She knows it’s past the first year, an’ she’ll think I’ll feel free to entertain. I donno but I ought to telegraph her: _Pleased to see you but don’t you expect a company._ Wouldn’t that be more open an’ aboveboard? Oh, dear!” Mis’ Fire Chief says, rockin’ in her chair that wouldn’t rock, “I’m well an’ the house is all in order an’ I could afford a company if I didn’t go in deep. But I couldn’t bear to be to it. That’s it, Calliope; I couldn’t bear to be to it.” I remember Mis’ Fire Chief kind of stopped then, like she thought of something; but I wasn’t looking at her. I was watching Harriet Wells that was standing by the window a little to one side. And I see her lift her hand and give it a little wave and lay it on the glass like a signal to somebody. And all of a sudden I knew it was half past ’leven and that Amos More went home early to his dinner at the boarding house so’s to get back at twelve-thirty, when Eppleby went for his, and that nine to ten it was Amos that Harriet was waving at. I knew it special and sure when Harriet turned back to the room with a nice little guilty look and a pink spot up high on both her cheeks. And something sort o’ shut up in my throat. It seems so easy for folks to get married in this world, and here was these two not doing it. All of a sudden Mis’ Fire Chief Merriman jumped up on to her feet. “Calliope Marsh,” says she, “I’ve got a plan. I can do it, if you’ll help me. Why can’t I give a company,” she says, “an’ not come in the room? A hostess has to be in the kitchen most of the time anyway. Why can’t I just stay there, an’ leave Maria be in the parlor, an’ me not be to the company at all?”