“When I felt that I needed a little sustenance I slipped into the pantry when the coast was clear and got me a cake. A real good cake…roll-jelly…I didn’t think they made them now. Then I scouted around for some milk and found a bowl of whipped cream in the ice-house. ‘Plenty more where that came from,’ thought I. Made a pretty decent meal.”

“And me blaming Sam Binnie,” said Judy. “Oh, oh, I’ll be begging his pardon, Binnie and all as he is.”

“I kept back in the bush…had to,” said Uncle Horace. “If I moved I fell over some canoodling couple. There were people in love all over the place.”

“Love is in the air at Silver Bush, symbolically speaking,” said Tillytuck. “I find it rather pleasant. The little girls’ love affairs give a flavor to life.”

“But Judy here isn’t married yet,” said Uncle Horace gravely.

“Oh, oh, I cudn’t support a husband,” sighed Judy.

“Don’t you think it’s time?” said Uncle Horace gravely. “We’re none of us getting younger, you know, Judy.”

“But I’m hoping some av us do be getting a liddle wiser,” retorted Judy witheringly.

But she was plainly in high cockalorum. Horace had always had a warm spot in her heart and in her eyes he was still a boy.

“I got a drink out of the old well while you were at supper,” said Uncle Horace in a different tone. “There’s none like it the world over. I’ve always understood David and his craving for a drink from the well at Bethlehem. And the ferns along the road from Silverbridge. I’ve smelled smells all the world over, east and west, and there’s no perfume like the fragrance of spice ferns as you walk along a P. E. Island road on a summer evening. Well, young folks like your girls and Judy mayn’t mind staying up all night, Alec, but I’m not equal to it any longer. Judy, do you suppose it’s possible to have fried chicken for breakfast?”

“How like a man!” Rae telegraphed in disgust to Pat. Expecting to have fried chicken for breakfast when it was four o’clock after a party! But Judy was actually looking pleased.

“There do be a pair av young roosters out there just asking for it,” she said meditatively.

Judy and Pat and Rae had a last word when everybody had gone.