But I made her know how in earnest I was; for, indeed, on the instant my mind was made up that the thing must be, that the lonely pink dress must see the light and with it Calliope's shy hopes, long cherished. And so, before I left her, it was arranged. She had agreed to come next morning to my house, if Madame Josephine were willing, bringing the rose-pink silk. "Me!" she said at last. "Why, me! Why, it's enough to make all the _me's_ I've been turn over in their graves. And I guess they hev turned and come trooping out, young again." Then, as she stood up, letting the soft stuff unwind and fall in shining abandon, we heard a little noise--tapping, insistent. It was very near to us--quite in the little passage; and as Calliope turned with the silk still in her arms the door swung back and there stood Grandma Hawley. She was leaning on her thick stick, and her gray lace cap was all awry and a mist of the fine, driving rain was on her gray hair. "I got m' feet wet," she said querulously. "M' feet are wet. Lyddy's gone to Mis' Sykes's. I comeback to stay a spell till it dries off some--" "Grandma!" Calliope cried, hurrying to her, "I didn't hear you come in. I never heard you. Come out by the kitchen fire and set your feet in the oven." Calliope had tossed the silk on the table and had run to the old woman with outstretched hand; but the outstretched hand Grandma Hawley did not see. She stood still, looking by Calliope with a manner rather than an expression of questioning. "What is't?" she asked, nodding direction. Calliope understood, and she slightly lifted her brows and her thin shoulders, and seemed to glance at me. "It's some pink for a dress, gramma," she said. Grandma Hawley came a little nearer, and stood, a neat, bent figure in rusty black, looking, down at the sumptuous, shining lengths. Then she laid her brown, veined hand upon the silk--and I remember now her fingers, being pricked and roughened by her constant needle, caught and rubbed on the soft stuff. "My soul," she said, "it's pink silk." She lifted her face to Calliope, the perpetual trembling of her head making her voice come tremulously. "That's what Abe Hawley was always talkin' when I married him," she said. "'A pink silk dress fer ye, Minnie. A fine pink silk to set ye off,' s' 'e over an' over. I thought I was a-goin' to hev it. I hed the style all picked out in my head. I know I use' to lay awake nights an' cut it out. But, time the cookin' things was paid for, the first baby come--an' then the other three to do for. An' Abe he didn't say pink silk after the fourth. But I use' to cut it out in the night, fer all that. I dunno but I cut it out yet, when I can't get to sleep an' my head feels bad. My head ain't right. It bothers me some, hummin' and ringin'. Las' night m' head--" "There, there, gramma," said Calliope, and took her arm. "You come along with me and set your feet in the oven."