"Well," she said miserably, "I expec' I've done wrong by you. The righter you try to do by some folks seems 's though the wronger it comes down on others. Oh," she cried, "I wish't I always knew what was right! But I can't go to the opera and I can't sit in the box. Yes, sir--I guess you'll think I'm real flighty and I dunno but what I am. But I've give my pink silk dress to Hannah Hager for her wedding. And I've lied some. I've said I meant she should hev it all along!" III The news that Calliope was to "give Hannah Hager a wedding" was received in Friendship with unaffected pleasure. Every one liked the tireless little thing, and those who could do so sent something to Calliope's house for a wedding-gift. These things Calliope jealously kept secret, intending not to let Hannah see them until the very hour of the ceremony. But when on Wednesday, some while before the appointed time, I went to the house, Calliope took me to the dining-room where the gifts were displayed. "Some of 'em's real peculiar," she confided; "some of 'em's what I call pick-up presents--things from 'round the house, you know. Mis' Postmaster Sykes she sent over the rug with the running dog on, and she's hed it in her parlor in a dark corner for years an' Hannah must have cleaned it many's the time. Mis' Holcomb-that-was-Mame-Bliss sent her old drop-leaf mahogany table, being she's got a new oak. The Liberty girls sent two of their chickens, live, for the wedding lunch, and I dassent to kill them--I'm real queer like that--so I hed to send for the groom, and he run up noon-hour and done it. And so on. But quite a few things are new--the granite iron and the drip coffee-pot and the sweeper's all new. And did you hear what Gramma Hawley done? Drew five dollars of her burial money out of the savings bank and give it to Hannah right out. You know how Gramma fixed it--she had Zittelhof figger up her funeral expenses and she banked the sum, high and dry, and left herself just bare enough to live on coming in. But now she drew the five out and give Zittelhof to understand he'd hev to skimp some on her coffin. Hannah told me, crying like a child at the i-dee." Calliope paused impressively, and shook her head at space. "But wouldn't you have thought," she demanded, "that Lyddy Eider might have give Hannah a little something to wear? One of her old dresses for street would have sent Hannah cloud-high, and over. I s'pose you heard what she did send? Mis' Postmaster Sykes run over to tell me. A man from the city come up by trolley sense noon to-day, bringing a rug from Lyddy. Well, of course a rug's a rug," Calliope admitted, "but it ain't a dress, seem's though. Hannah knows about Gramma's an' Lyddy's, but she don't know a word about the other presents. I do admire a surprise."