“Oh, oh, it’s a sorryful thing to watch inny one going away by moonlight,” said Judy. “I’m thinking, Patsy, I’ll never be seeing Jingle again, the dear lad.”

“I don’t think he will ever come again to Silver Bush,” said Pat. Her voice was quiet but her very words seemed tears. “Judy, why must there be so much bitterness in everything…even in what should be a beautiful friendship?”

“I’m not knowing,” admitted Judy.

“The scissors are lost again,” May told them as they re-entered the kitchen, her tone implying that everyone at Silver Bush was responsible for their disappearance.

“Oh, oh, if that was all that did be lost!” Judy sighed dismally, as she climbed to her kitchen chamber. Judy was quite unacquainted with Tennyson but she would wholeheartedly have agreed with him that there was something in the world amiss…oh, oh, very much amiss. And she was far from being sure…now…that it would ever be unriddled.

THE NINTH YEAR

CHAPTER 47

Hilary wrote just once to Pat after he went away…one of his old delightful letters, full of beautiful little pencil sketches of the houses he was going to design. Just at the last he wrote:

“Don’t feel badly, Pat, dear, because I love you and you can’t love me. I’ve always loved you. I can’t help it and I wouldn’t if I could. If the choice had been mine I would still have chosen to love you. There are people who try to forget a hopeless love. I’m not one of them, Pat. To me the greatest misfortune life could bring would be that I should forget you. I want to remember and love you always. That will be unspeakably better than any happiness that could come through forgetting. My love for you is the best thing…always has been the best thing…in my life. It hasn’t made me poorer. On the contrary it has enriched my whole existence and given me the gift of clear vision for the things that matter; it has been a lamp held before my feet whereby I have avoided many pitfalls of baser passions and unworthy dreams. It will always be so. Therefore don’t pity me and don’t feel unhappy about me.”

But Pat did feel unhappy and the feeling persisted more or less under all the outward happiness of the autumn and winter. For it did seem to be a happy time. Long Alec had definitely stated that in a year from the next spring he hoped to build on the other farm for Sid and May. Everyone knew this was final and May, with much pouting and sulking, had to reconcile herself to the fact that she would never be mistress of Silver Bush.