She looked hard at us, and, "I donno if you know what I'm talkin' about——" she doubted; but, at our answer,
"Well," she added, "they's somethin' else. It's somethin' almost like what you've got—you two—an' like what Delia an' Abel have got. Lately, I don't need to hear the Bell any more. I know 'bout it without. It's almost like I am the Bell. Don't you see, it's come to be my power, just like love will be your power, if you rilly understand. An' here—here I know how. I've grown to Friendship, an' here I know what's what. An' if I went away now, where things is gentle an' like in books, I wouldn't know how to be any rill use. I can be the Bell here—here I can have my power. In town I expect I couldn't be anything but just cake again—bakin' myself rill good, or even gettin' frosted; but mebbe not helpin'. An' I couldn't risk that—I couldn't risk it. It looks to me like helpin' is what I'm for."
I think, as she said, Calliope was become the Bell; and at that moment she rang to us the call of sovereign clearness. This was the life that she and Abel followed, and followed before all else, and there lay the hiding of their power. "Just like love will be your power," she had said.
When she had gone before us into the house—that was to have been her house—we two stood looking along the sunny Plank Road toward Daphne Street. And in the light lifting of the bonfire smoke it seemed to me that there moved a spirit—not Daphne, but another; one who walks less in beauty than in service; not our lady of the laurels, but our lady of the thorns.