We looked eagerly at the daguerreotypes in the old case.
“Why, Rachel Ward wasn’t a bit pretty!” exclaimed the Story Girl in poignant disappointment.
No, Rachel Ward was not pretty, that had to be admitted. The picture showed a fresh young face, with strongly marked, irregular features, large black eyes, and black curls hanging around the shoulders in old-time style.
“Rachel wasn’t pretty,” said Uncle Alec, “but she had a lovely colour and a beautiful smile. She looks far too sober in that picture.”
“She has a beautiful neck and bust,” said Aunt Olivia critically.
“Anyhow, Will Montague was really handsome,” said the Story Girl.
“A handsome rogue,” growled Uncle Alec. “I never liked him. I was only a little chap of ten but I saw through him. Rachel Ward was far too good for him.”
We would dearly have liked to get a peep into the letters, too. But Aunt Olivia would not allow that. They must be burned unread, she declared. She took the wedding dress and veil, the picture case, and the letters away with her. The rest of the things were put back into the chest, pending their ultimate distribution. Aunt Janet gave each of us boys a handkerchief. The Story Girl got the blue candlestick, and Felicity and Cecily each got a pink and gold vase. Even Sara Ray was made happy by the gift of a little china plate, with a loudly coloured picture of Moses and Aaron before Pharaoh in the middle of it. Moses wore a scarlet cloak, while Aaron disported himself in bright blue. Pharaoh was arrayed in yellow. The plate had a scalloped border with a wreath of green leaves around it.
“I shall never use it to eat off,” said Sara rapturously. “I’ll put it up on the parlour mantelpiece.”
“I don’t see much use in having a plate just for ornament,” said Felicity.
“It’s nice to have something interesting to look at,” retorted Sara, who felt that the soul must have food as well as the body.
“I’m going to get a candle for my candlestick, and use it every night to go to bed with,” said the Story Girl. “And I’ll never light it without thinking of poor Rachel Ward. But I do wish she had been pretty.”
“Well,” said Felicity, with a glance at the clock, “it’s all over, and it has been very interesting. But that clock has got to be put back to the right time some time through the day. I don’t want bedtime coming a whole half-hour before it ought to.”
In the afternoon, when Aunt Janet was over at Uncle Roger’s, seeing him and Aunt Olivia off to town, the clock was righted. The Story Girl and Peter came over to stay all night with us, and we made taffy in the kitchen, which the grown-ups kindly gave over to us for that purpose.
“Of course it was very interesting to see the old chest unpacked,” said the Story Girl, as she stirred the contents of a saucepan vigorously. “But now that it is over I believe I am sorry that it is opened. It isn’t mysterious any longer. We know all about it now, and we can never imagine what things are in it any more.”
“It’s better to know than to imagine,” said Felicity.
“Oh, no, it isn’t,” said the Story Girl quickly. “When you know things you have to go by facts. But when you just dream about things there’s nothing to hold you down.”
“You’re letting the taffy scorch, and that’s a fact you’d better go by,” said Felicity, sniffing. “Haven’t you got a nose?”
When we went to bed, that wonderful white enchantress, the moon, was making an elf-land of the snow-misted world outside. From where I lay I could see the sharp tops of the spruces against the silvery sky. The frost was abroad, and the winds were still and the land lay in glamour.
Across the hall the Story Girl was telling Felicity and Cecily the old, old tale of Argive Helen and “evil-hearted Paris.”
“But that’s a bad story,” said Felicity when the tale was ended. “She left her husband and run away with another man.”
“I suppose it was bad four thousand years ago,” admitted the Story Girl. “But by this time the bad must have all gone out of it. It’s only the good that could last so long.”
Our summer was over. It had been a beautiful one. We had known the sweetness of common joys, the delight of dawns, the dream and glamour of noontides, the long, purple peace of carefree nights. We had had the pleasure of bird song, of silver rain on greening fields, of storm among the trees, of blossoming meadows, and of the converse of whispering leaves. We had had brotherhood with wind and star, with books and tales, and hearth fires of autumn. Ours had been the little, loving tasks of every day, blithe companionship, shared thoughts, and adventuring. Rich were we in the memory of those opulent months that had gone from us—richer than we then knew or suspected. And before us was the dream of spring. It is always safe to dream of spring. For it is sure to come; and if it be not just as we have pictured it, it will be infinitely sweeter.
Spot and cover illustrations by Elly MacKay
Cover illustrations by Elly MacKay
LUCY MAUD MONTGOMERY (1874–1942) was born in what is now New London, Prince Edward Island, and raised by her grandparents after the death of her mother when she was just two. She worked for a time as a teacher and a journalist, then wrote her first novel, Anne of Green Gables, in the evenings while caring for her grandmother. She went on to publish twenty novels and hundreds of short stories, and she created, in Anne Shirley and Emily Starr, two of the most beloved characters in Canadian literature.
ELLY MACKAY is a paper artist and a children’s book author and illustrator. She studied illustration and printmaking at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design and at the University of Canterbury, in New Zealand. Her distinctive pieces are made using paper and ink, and then are set into a miniature theatre and photographed, giving them their unique three-dimensional quality. Elly lives in Owen Sound, Ontario, with her husband and two children.
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