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if He isn’t willing, Judy?”

      “Thin it wud niver happen, me jewel.”

      Pat wondered if she prayed to God not to be willing if it would do any good.

      “What would happen if you prayed for … for a wicked thing, Judy?”

      “Oh, oh, you might get it,” said Judy so eerily that Pat was terrified and decided that it was wiser to take no risks.

      Eventually she became resigned to it. She found herself quite important in school because her aunt was going to be married. And there was a pleasant air of excitement about Silver Bush, which deepened as the days went by. Little was talked of but the wedding preparations. The old barn cat had what Judy called a “clutch” of kittens and nobody was excited over it except Pat. But it was nice to have a bit of a secret. Only she and the barn cat knew where the kittens were. She would not tell until they were too old to drown. Somehow, most of the spring kittens had vanished in some mysterious fashion which Pat never could fathom. Only Tuesday and Thursday were left and Tuesday was promised to Aunt Hazel. So the new kittens were warmly welcomed, but finding names for them had to be left until the wedding was over because Pat couldn’t get any one interested in it just now.

      The Poet’s room was repapered, much to her joy … though she was sorry to see the old paper torn off … and when mother brought home new, cobwebby lace curtains for the Big Parlour Pat began to think a wedding had its good points. But she was very rebellious when her room was repapered, too. She loved the old paper, with its red and green parrots that had been there ever since she could remember. She had never been without a secret hope that they might come alive sometime.

      “I don’t see why my room has to be papered, even if Aunt Hazel is going to be married,” she sobbed.

      “Listen to rason now, darlint,” argued Judy. “Sure and on the widding day the place’ll be full av quality. All yer grand relations from town and Novy Scotia will be here and the Madisons from New Brunswick … millionaires, they do be saying. And some av thim will have to be putting their wraps in yer room. Ye wudn’t want thim to be seeing old, faded wallpaper, wud ye now?”

      No … o … o, Pat wouldn’t want that.

      “And I’ve tould yer mother ye must be allowed to pick the new paper yerself … sure and there do be a pattern of bluebells at the store that you’d love. So cheer up and help me wid the silver polishing. Ivery piece in the house must be rubbed up for the grand ivent. Sure and we haven’t had a widding at Silver Bush for twinty years. It do be too much like heaven that, wid nather marrying nor giving in marriage. The last was whin yer Aunt Christine got her man. Sure and I hope yer Aunt Hazel won’t have the mischance to her widding veil that poor liddle Chrissy had.”

      “Why, what happened to it, Judy?”

      “Oh, oh, what happened to it, sez she. It had a cap av rose point that yer great-great-grandmother brought from the Ould Country wid her. Oh, oh, ‘twas the illigant thing! And they had it lying in state on the bed in the Poet’s room. But whin they wint in to get it, me jewel, … well, there was a liddle dog here at Silver Bush thin and the liddle spalpane had got into the room unbeknownst and he had chewed and slobbered the veil and the lace cap till ye cudn’t tell where one left off and the other begun. Poor liddle Chrissie cried that pitiful … small blame to her.”

      “Oh, Judy, what did they do?”

      “Do, is it? Sure they cud do nothing and they did it. Poor Chrissy had to be married widout her veil, sobbing all troo the cirrimony. A great scandal it made I’m telling ye. It’s meself that will kape the key av the Poet’s room this time and if I catch that Snicklefritz prowling about the house it’s meself that’ll put a tin ear on that dog, if Joe takes a fit over it. And now, whin we’ve finished this lot av silver, ye’ll come out to the ould part and help me pick the damsons. Sure and I’m going to do up a big crock av baked damsons for yer Aunt Hazel. Hasn’t she always said there was nobody cud bake damsons like ould Judy Plum … more be token of me name perhaps.”

      “Oh, hurry with the silver, Judy.”

      Pat loved picking damsons with Judy … and the green gages and the golden gages and the big purplered egg plums.

      “Oh, oh, I’m niver in a hurry, me jewel. There’s all the time in the world and after that there’s eternity. There’s loads and lashins av work if yer Aunt Hazel is to have the proper widding but it’ll all be done dacently and in order.”

      4

      Pat couldn’t help feeling pleasantly excited when she found that she was to be Aunt Hazel’s flower girl. But she felt so sorry for Winnie who was too old to be a flower girl and not old enough to be a bridesmaid, that it almost spoilt her own pleasure. Aunt Hazel was to have two bridesmaids and all were to be dressed in green, much to Judy’s horror, who declared green was unlucky for weddings.

      “Oh, oh, there was a widding once in the Ould Country and the bridesmaids wore grane. And the fairies were that mad they put a curse on the house, that they did.”

      “How did they curse it, Judy?”

      “I’m telling ye. There was niver to be inny more laughter in that house … niver agin. Oh, oh, that’s a tarrible curse. Think av a house wid no laughter in it.”

      “And wasn’t there ever any, Judy?”

      “Niver a bit. Plinty of waping but no laughing. Oh, oh, ‘twas a sorryful place!”

      Pat felt a little uneasy. What if there never were to be any more laughter at Silver Bush … father’s gentle chuckles and Uncle Tom’s hearty booms … Winnie’s silvery trills … Judy’s broad mirth? But her dress was so pretty … a misty, spring-green crepe with smocked yoke and a cluster of dear pink rosebuds on the shoulder. And a shirred green hat with roses on the brim. Pat had to revel in it, curse or no curse. She did not realise … as Judy did … that the green made her pale, tanned little face paler and browner. Pat as yet had no spark of vanity. The dress itself was everything.

      The wedding was to be in the afternoon and the “nuptial cemetery,” as Winnie, who was a ten-year-old Mrs. Malaprop … called it, was to be in the old grey stone church at South Glen which all the Gardiners had attended from time immemorial. Judy thought this a modern innovation.

      “Sure and in the ould days at Silver Bush they used to be married in the avening and dance the night away. But they didn’t go stravaging off on these fine honeymoon trips then. Oh, oh, they wint home and settled down to their business. ‘Tis the times that have changed and not for the better I do be thinking. It used to be only the Episcopalians was married in church. Sure and it’s niver been a Presbytarian custom at all, at all.”

      “Are you a Presbyterian, Judy?”

      Pat was suddenly curious. She had never thought about Judy’s religion. Judy went to the South Glen church with them on Sundays but would never sit in the Gardiner pew … always up in the gallery, where she could see everything, Uncle Tom said.

      “Oh, oh, I’m Presbytarian as much as an Irish body can be,” said Judy cautiously. “Sure and I cud niver be a rale Presbytarian not being Scotch. But innyhow I’m praying that all will go well and that yer Aunt Hazel’ll have better luck than yer grand-dad’s secound cousin had whin she was married.”

      “What happened to grand-dad’s second cousin, Judy?”

      “Oh, oh, did ye niver hear av it? Sure and it seems nobody’d iver tell ye yer fam’ly history if ould Judy didn’t. She died, poor liddle soul, of the pewmonia, the day before the widding and was buried in her widding dress. ‘Twas a sad thing for she’d been long in landing her man … she was thirty if she was a day … and it was hard to be disap’inted at the last moment like that. Now, niver be crying, me jewel, over what happened fifty years ago. She’d likely be dead innyhow be this time and maybe she was spared a lot av trouble, for the groom was a wild felly enough and was only taking her for her bit av money, folks said. Here, give

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