“Oh, oh, her beau was a capting and afore he wint on the v’yage that proved his last he locked a chain bracelet on her arm…a gold one it was, no less…and tuk the kay wid him, making her promise she’d niver marry inny one ilse unless he come back and unlocked the bracelet. Sissy promised light enough. The Morgans wud promise innything. But she was pretty, that Sissy, and the capting was crazy about her. He was swept over-board in a storm and the kay wint to the bottom av the Atlantic wid him. Liddle Sissy tuk on a bit but the Morgans soon get over things and in a year she did be wanting rale bad to marry Peter Snowe. But she was scared to bekase av her promise about the bracelet. Her dad wanted the match bekase Peter was rale well to do but Sissy stuck to it she dassn’t and siveral tommyshaws they had over it all. Oh, oh, but there was the funny squeal to it.”

“What was the sequel?”

“Oh, oh, sequel, is it? Well, Sissy was slaping sound in her bed one moonlight night and whin she woke the bracelet was unlocked…just that. She didn’t be seeing nothing or nobody but it was unlocked.”

“I don’t think that is funny, Judy,” said Cuddles with a little shiver. “That was…horrible.”

“Oh, oh! Sure and it was funny thin whin Peter Snowe wudn’t have her after all…said he wasn’t taking inny ghost’s lavings. The rist av the min samed to be having the same faling and she died an ould maid in the ind av it.”

“Why, here’s Joe’s silver spoon,” pounced Pat. “This is a find. We never knew what became of it. How in the world did it get here? Won’t mother be pleased!”

The little silver spoon with the dents where Joe had cut his teeth…Joe who was half way to China now. Pat sighed and rose.

“Well, that is all. I wonder if we should burn those old letters. In a way I’d like to read them…there’s something fascinating in old letters…they seem to open ghostly gates…but I suppose Aunt Martha wouldn’t have liked it.”

Pat picked the packet up. An old dim, flattened four-leaved clover slipped from it. Who had found luck with it? Not Aunt Martha at all events. The letters were brittle and yellow…full of old words of love written years ago from hearts that were dust…full of old joys that had once been raptures and dim old griefs that had once been agonies.

“We must drag the chest back into its corner. Look at Bold-and-Bad peering out of it.”

Bold-and-Bad’s eyes were glowing in his lair, giving that uncanny expression cats’ eyes often do…as if they were merely transparent, letting the burning fires behind them become visible.