"And he niver failed to come, did he, Patsy? I'm almost belaving if ye set a light in this windy to-night he'd see it and come. Patsy dear," ... Judy's voice grew wheedling and confidential ... "do ye iver be thinking a bit about Jingle ... ye know ..."
Pat laughed, her amber eyes full of roguish mirth.
"Judy darling, you've always had great hopes of making a match between Hilary and me but they're doomed to disappointment. Hilary and I are chums but we'll never be anything else. We're TOO good chums to be anything else."
"Ye seen so set on turning ivery one else down," sighed Judy. "And I always did be liking Jingle. It's not a bad thing to be chums wid yer husband, I'm tould."
"WHY are you so set on my having a 'real' beau, Judy? Any one would think you wanted to get rid of me."
"It's better ye're knowing than that, me jewel. Whin ye lave Silver Bush the light av ould Judy Plum's eyes will go wid ye."
"Then just be glad I mean to stay, Judy. I never want to leave Silver Bush ... I want to stay here always and grow old with my cats and dogs. I love the very walls of it. Look, Judy, the Virignia creeper has got to the roof. It's lucky we have so many vines here, for the house does need painting terribly and dad says he can't afford it this year."
"Yer Uncle Tom is painting Swallyfield ... white, wid grane trimmings, it's to be. He started to-day."
"Yes." A shadow fell over Pat's face. Every one in North Glen knew by this time that Tom Gardiner was writing to a lady in California, though not even the keenest of the gossips had found out anything more, not even her name. "Swallowfield really needs painting but it has needed it for years. And now Uncle Tom seems to have a mania for sprucing things up. He's even going to have that dear old red door stained and grained. I've always loved that red door so much. Judy, you don't think there is anything in that story of his going to be married, do you?"
"I wudn't be saying. And me fine Aunt Edith wudn't be liking it," said Judy in a tone which indicated that for her, at least, there would be balm in Gilead if Tom Gardiner really up and married at last. "There do be another story round, Patsy, that Joe do be ingaged to Enid Sutton. Is there inny truth in IT?"
"I can't say. He saw a good deal of her when he was home. Well, she is a very nice girl and will suit Joe very well."
Pat felt herself very magnanimous in thus according approval to Joe's reputed choice. If it had been Sid ... Pat shivered a little. But Sid wouldn't be thinking of marrying for years yet.
"Oh, oh, if it iver comes to a widding I hope Enid will be having better luck wid her dress than her mother had. There was a dressmaker in town making it ... the Suttons houlding thimsilves a bit above the Silverbridge dressmaker ... and she was sick, but she sint word she'd have the dress ready for the widding day widout fail. Whin the morning come, she did be phoning up she had sint it be the train but whin the train come in niver a widding dress was on it. And, what's more, that dress niver turned up ... niver, Patsy dear. The poor liddle bride was married in a blue serge suit and tears."
"Whatever became of the dress, Judy?"
"The Good Man Above knows and Him only. It was shipped be the ixpress agent at Charlottetown and that was the last iver seen or heard av it. White sating and lace! But at that I do be thinking she was luckier than the bride at Castle McDermott."
"What happened to her?"
"Oh, oh, it was a hundred years afore me time there but the story was tould me. She wint to the wardrobe and put her hand in to fetch out her widding dress and ..." Judy leaned forward dramatically in the gathering gloom ... "AND IT WAS GRASPED BY A BONY HAND."
"Whose?" Pat shivered deliriously.
"Oh, oh, WHOSE? That did be the question, Patsy dear. No good Christian, I'm telling ye. The poor bride fainted and the widding had to be put off and the groom was killed on the way home, being thrown from his horse. Minny's the time I did be seeing the wardrobe whin I was working there but niver wud the McDermotts allow that door to be opened agin. The story wint that the widding dress was still hanging there. Oh, oh!" Judy sighed. "I belave I'll have to be paying a visit to ould Ireland this fall. I do be having a hankering for it I haven't had for years."
Cuddles came running up the stairs, preceded by Bold-and-Bad who covered three steps at a leap.
"Oh, I hope I'm in time. I've finished that Latin. No wonder Latin died. DID people ever really talk that stuff? Talk it just as you and I do? I can't believe it. Joe made me promise I'd lead my class in it and if I did he'd tattoo my arm next time he came no matter what fuss YOU made. So I'm going to do it or bust."
"The young ladies av Castle McDermott niver did be talking av busting," said Judy reproachfully.
"Oh, I suppose they talked a brogue you could cut with a knife," retorted Cuddles. "Well, let's get at the old chest. It's such fun to rummage through old boxes. You never know what you may come across. It's like living for a while in yesterday."
10
They dragged the old black chest out of its corner to the window. Bold-and-Bad, deciding that it was not a thing likely to do a cat any good, crept off into the darkness under the eaves and imagined himself a Bengal tiger. The black chest was full of the usual miscellany of old garret chests. Ancient lace and velvet and flower-trimmed hats, bundles of banished Christmas cards, limp ostrich feathers, faded family photographs, strings of birds' eggs, discarded dresses with the pointed basques and polonaises and puffed sleeves of other vintages, old school-books, maps the Silver Bush children had drawn, packets of yellow letters, a "rat" worn in the days of pompadours, old faded things once beautiful. They had oceans of fun over them.
"What on earth is this?" demanded Cuddles, holding up an indescribable mass of crushed wire. Judy gave a snort of laughter.
"Oh, oh, that do be yer Aunt Helen's ould bustle. I rimimber how yer dad yelled whin she brought it home. It's the dashing lady she was and always the first in the clan to be out in a new fashion. She wint to a concert that night at the Bridge wid her beau and they say he was crimson to the ears, he was that ashamed av it. But in a few wakes' time iverybody did be wearing thim. He shud have been thankful she didn't wear it like Maggie Jimson at the South Glin did whin her sister as was working up in Bosting sint her one home ... a rale fancy one all covered wid blue sating."
"How did she wear it, Judy?"
"Outside her dress," said Judy solemly. "They say the folks who were in church that day were niver the same agin. Oh, oh, but the fashions do be changing always. Only kissing stays in. Mebbe this ould bustle will be took down some av these days and displayed on the parlour mantelpiece be way av an heirloom."
"Look at this!" Cuddles held up a huge brown velvet hat with a draggled and enormous shaded-green ostrich feather on it. "Fancy living up to a hat like that!"
"Oh, oh, that was yer Aunt Hazel's hat wid what they called a willow plume and rale nice it did be looking over her pompydore. Though I niver fancied velvet hats mesilf iver since the mouse jumped out av Mrs. Reuben Russell's one Sunday at the Bridge church. THAT was a tommyshaw."
"If Tillytuck was here he'd say he was the mouse," giggled Cuddles.
Pat pounced on an article.
"Judy, if here isn't my old little cheese hoop! I've often wondered where it disappeared to. I wanted to keep it always in remembrance of those dear little cheeses you used to make me in it ... one for myself every year. You don't remember Judy making cheese, Cuddles, but I do. It was such fun."
"And here do be one av yer Great-grandmother Gardiner's ruffled caps," said Judy. "Minny's the time I've done it up for her ... she always said that nobody cud be giving the frills the right quirk like young Judy. Oh, oh, I was young Judy thin and I'd larned the trick at Castle McDermott. Ould lady Gardiner always made her caps hersilf ... it's the beautiful himstitcher she was. She was a rale fine ould lady, if some folks did be thinking her a bit too uppity. Did I iver be telling ye av the night she was knaling be her bed be an open windy, saying her prayers and her thoughts in hiven ... I'm s'posing ... and a big cat crawled through the windy and lit on her back suddent-like wid a pair av claws that tuk hold?"