Lavender and Old Lace

As she replaced them, singing softly to herself, a folded newspaper

slipped to the floor. It was yellow and worn, like the letters, and

she unfolded it carefully. It was over thirty years old, and around

a paragraph on the last page a faint line still lingered. It was an

announcement of the marriage of Charles G. Winfield, captain of the

schooner Mary, to Miss Abigail Weatherby.

"Abigail Weatherby," she said aloud. The name had a sweet, old-fashioned

sound. "They must have been Aunt Jane's friends." She closed the trunk

and pushed it back to its place, under the eaves.

In a distant corner was the old cedar chest, heavily carved. She pulled

it out into the light, her cheeks glowing with quiet happiness, and sat

down on the floor beside it. It was evidently Miss Hathaway's treasure

box, put away in the attic when spinsterhood was confirmed by the

fleeting years.

On top, folded carefully in a sheet, was a gown of white brocade,

short-waisted and quaint, trimmed with pearl passementerie. The neck was

square, cut modestly low, and filled in with lace of a delicate, frosty

pattern--Point d'Alencon. Underneath the gown lay piles of lingerie, all

of the finest linen, daintily made by hand. Some of it was trimmed with

real lace, some with crocheted edging, and the rest with hemstitched

ruffles and feather-stitching.

There was another gown, much worn, of soft blue cashmere, some

sea-shells, a necklace of uncut turquoises, the colour changed to green,

a prayer-book, a little hymnal, and a bundle of letters, tied with

a faded blue ribbon, which she did not touch. There was but one

picture--an ambrotype, in an ornate case, of a handsome young man, with

that dashing, dare-devil look in his eyes which has ever been attractive

to women.

Ruth smiled as she put the treasures away, thinking that, had Fate

thrown the dice another way, the young man might have been her esteemed

and respected uncle. Then, all at once, it came to her that she had

unthinkingly stumbled upon her aunt's romance.

She was not a woman to pry into others' secrets, and felt guilty as she

fled from the attic, taking the lamp with her. Afterward, as she sat on

the narrow piazza, basking in the warm Spring sunshine, she pieced out

the love affair of Jane Hathaway's early girlhood after her own fashion.

She could see it all plainly. Aunt Jane had expected to be married

to the dashing young man and had had her trousseau in readiness, when

something happened. The folded paper would indicate that he was Charles

Winfield, who had married some one else, but whether Aunt Jane had

broken her engagement, or the possible Uncle Charles had simply taken a

mate without any such formality, was a subject of conjecture.

Still, if the recreant lover had married another, would Aunt Jane have

kept her treasure chest and her wedding gown? Ruth knew that she herself

would not, but she understood that aunts were in a class by themselves.

It was possible that Charles Winfield was an earlier lover, and she had

kept the paper without any special motive, or, perhaps, for "auld lang

syne."