The only time Mary ever found Aunt Pat cross with her was the day she had taken Tillytuck’s hatchet and cut down a little poplar that was just beginning life behind the turkey house. Aunt Pat’s eyes did flash then. Mary was packed off home in disgrace and made to feel that if Aunt Pat ever forgave her it would be more than she deserved. Mary really couldn’t understand it. It had been such a little tree. Aunt Pat hadn’t been half so cross when she, Little Mary, had spilled a whole can of molasses on the Little Parlor rug or upset the jug of water on the floor in the Poet’s room.

But everybody at Silver Bush spoiled Little Mary because they loved her. She had such a delightful little face. Everything about it laughed…her eyes…her mouth…the corners of her nose…the dimples in her cheeks…the little curl in front of her ears. Judy vowed she was “the spit and image” of Pat in childhood but she was far prettier than Pat had ever been. Yet she lacked the elfin charm that had been Pat’s and sometimes Judy thought it was just as well. Perhaps it was not a good thing to have that strange little spark of difference that set you off by yourself and made a barrier, however slight and airy it might be, between you and your kind. It is quite likely that this lurking idea of Judy’s was born of the fact that Pat’s beaus no longer came to Silver Bush. Ever since the affair of Donald Holmes the youth of the Glens had left Pat severely alone. To be sure, when Tillytuck commented on this, Judy scornfully remarked that Pat had had them all tied up by the ears at one time or another and no more men were left. But in secret it worried her. It made Judy quite wild to think of Pat ever being an old maid. Even David Kirk didn’t seem to be getting anywhere with what the clan persisted in thinking his wooing. When Judy heard that Mrs. Binnie had said that Pat Gardiner was pretty well on the shelf she trembled with wrath.

“Oh, oh, there do be just this difference betwane Madam Binnie and a rattlesnake, Tillytuck…the snake can’t be talking.”

Pat was not worrying over the absence of the men.