Pat, although the thought of Judy going to Ireland, even if only for a visit, gave her a nasty sensation, entered heartily into the question of the new dress and went to town with Judy to help in the selection and bully the dressmaker into making it exactly as Judy wanted it. Uncle Tom was in town that day and they saw him dodging out of a jeweler’s shop, trying hastily to secrete a small, ornately wrapped parcel in his pocket before he encountered them. Not succeeding, he muttered something about having to see a man and shot down a side street.

“Uncle Tom is awfully mysterious about something these days,” said Pat. “What do you suppose he has been buying in that shop? I’m sure it couldn’t have been anything for Aunt Edith or Aunt Barbara.”

“Oh, oh, Patsy dear, I’m belaving yer Uncle Tom has a notion av getting married. I know the signs.”

Pat experienced another disagreeable sensation. Change at Swallowfield was almost as bad as change at Silver Bush. Uncle Tom and the aunts had always lived there…always would. Pat couldn’t fit an Aunt Tom into the picture at all.

“Oh, Judy, I can’t think he would be so foolish. At his age! Why, he’s sixty!”

“Wid me own eyes, Patsy, I saw him rading a letter one day and stuffing it into his pocket like mad whin he caught me eye on him. And blushing! Whin a man av his age do be blushing there’s something quare in the wind. Do ye be minding back in the summer Cuddles telling us she was after mailing letters from him to a lady?”

Pat sighed and put the disagreeable matter out of her mind. She wasn’t going to have the afternoon spoiled. There were many things to buy besides Judy’s satin dress. Pat loved shopping. It was so fascinating to go into the big department store and pick things to buy…pretty things that just wanted to be taken away from all the glitter and too-muchness to be made part of a real home. They had to have some new overdrapes for the dining-room and new covers for the Big Parlor cushions and a set of little glass dishes to serve the chilled fruit cocktails Pat had decided on for the first course of the Christmas dinner. Judy was a little dubious about trying to put on too much style…“cocktails” had a quare sound whin all was said and done and Silver Bush had always been a great timperance place…

“Oh, Judy darling, it isn’t that kind of cocktails at all. Just bits of fruit…and juice…and a red maraschino cherry on top. You’ll love them.”