“Oh, oh, ye’ve got the right philosophy av it,” agreed Judy brightening up. “Did I be telling ye I had a letter from me cousin in Ireland today?”

They had been very curious about that letter. A letter for Judy was a phenomenon at Silver Bush, and Judy had been curiously affected by it. If it had been possible for her to turn pale she would have done so. She had taken the letter and stalked off to the graveyard to read it. All the rest of the day she had been strangely quiet.

“I sint her a scratch av me pin back a bit. I hadn’t been hearing from her for over twinty years and thinks I to mesilf, ‘Maybe she’s dead but at innyrate I’ll find out.’ And today along comes her answer. Living and flourishing and that glad to think av me visiting her. And me ould Uncle Michael Plum do be living yet at ninety-five and calling his son av sivinty a saucy young felly whiniver he conterdicts him! It did be giving me a quare faling, Patsy. I’m thinking I know what it’s going to be like on the resurrection day, no less.”

“Hilary is going across this month,” said Pat. “He has won the Bannister scholarship and is going to spend the summer in France, sketching French country houses.”

Pat did not tell them everything about the matter. She did not tell them that Hilary had asked her a certain question again. If she could answer it as he wished he would spend the summer in P. E. Island instead of in France. But Pat was sure she couldn’t answer it as he wished. She loved him so dearly as a friend but that was all.

“I’m putting into this letter,” she concluded, “a little corner of the orchard, a young fir all overgrown with green tassel tips, that moonlit curve you remember in Jordan…a bit of wild plum spray…a wind that has blown over spice ferns…the purr of a little cat and the bark of a little dog who desires to be remembered to you…and always my best friendly love. Isn’t that enough, Hilary, darling? Come home and enjoy these things and let us have one more summer of our old jolly companionship.”