“She do be thinking there’ll be one more out av her way,” reflected Judy scornfully.

“I’m glad to hear you’re getting another of your gals married off,” Mrs. Binnie told mother patronizingly. “You’ll soon be like myself…only one left.” A sentimental sigh. “What about you, Pat? Isn’t it time you were thinking of leaping the ditch? The men don’t seem to be what they were in my young days.”

Pat fled to her room where Rae had piled all her belongings on the bed.

“Forget Mother Binnie, Pat, and help me pack. I never was any good at packing. Tell me what to take or leave.”

The yawning trunk gave Pat a stab. Rae was really going away…going to China! Why couldn’t it have been Rae’s fortune to settle down near home like Winnie? Yet she remembered that she had thought Winnie’s going a tragedy. How life grew around changes until they became a part of it and were changes no more! Winnie coming home with her babies…Winnie’s home to visit…why, it was all delightful. But China! And yet Rae was serenely happy over it all. A line of some old-fashioned song Aunt Hazel used to sing long ago came back to Pat, as she folded and packed. “The one who goes is happier far than the one that’s left behind.”

Perhaps it was true. She almost envied Rae her happiness. And yet she felt sorry for her…for Rae, who was leaving Silver Bush. How could anyone be happy, leaving Silver Bush?

“This time tomorrow I’ll be an old married woman,” said Rae, scrutinizing herself in the mirror. “I believe it’s high time I was married, Pat. It seems to me that I’m getting a certain school-teacherish look already. Do you know Brook is having the wedding ring specially made. No hand-me-downs for him, he says. I hope I’ll get through the ceremony respectably. Mother Binnie will be there, watching me.”

“She isn’t coming, Rae!”

“She is. May asked me if her mother couldn’t come to see me married? I really couldn’t say no. So I want everything to go nicely. I’m not going to look up at Brook when I’m uttering the final vow. That has got so common…Mrs. Binnie said Olive did it and everyone thought it ‘so touching.’ Anyway, I’d be sure to laugh. Listen to that bluebird out in the orchard, Pat. I suppose they don’t have bluebirds in China…or do they? But there’ll be cats…surely there’ll be cats in China…cats guarding mysterious secrets…cats furry and contented. Only…will they mew in Chinese? If they do! And then, of course, after a while there’ll be my children. I want ten.”

“Ten? Why stop short of the dozen?” giggled Pat.