Lavender and Old Lace | Page 9

forth in ghostly fashion, gave out a wholesome fragrance, and when she opened trunks whose lids creaked on their rusty hinges, dried rosemary, lavender, and sweet clover filled the room with that long-stored sweetness which is the gracious handmaiden of Memory.
Miss Hathaway was a thrifty soul, but she never stored discarded clothing that might be of use to any one, and so Ruth found no moth-eaten garments of bygone pattern, but only things which seemed to be kept for the sake of their tender associations.
There were letters, on whose yellowed pages the words had long since faded, a dogeared primer, and several well worn schoolbooks, each having on its fly-leaf: "Jane Hathaway, Her Book"; scraps of lace, brocade ard rustling taffeta, quilt patterns, needlebooks, and all of the eloquent treasures that a well stored attic can yield.
As she replaced them, singing softly to herself, a folded newspaper slipped to the floor. It was yellow and worn, like the letters, and she unfolded it carefully. It was over thirty years old, and around a paragraph on the last page a faint line still lingered. It was an announcement of the marriage of Charles G. Winfield, captain of the schooner Mary, to Miss Abigail Weatherby.
"Abigail Weatherby," she said aloud. The name had a sweet, old-fashioned sound. "They must have been Aunt Jane's friends." She closed the trunk and pushed it back to its place, under the eaves.
In a distant corner was the old cedar chest, heavily carved. She pulled it out into the light, her cheeks glowing with quiet happiness, and sat down on the floor beside it. It was evidently Miss Hathaway's treasure box, put away in the attic when spinsterhood was confirmed by the fleeting years.
On top, folded carefully in a sheet, was a gown of white brocade, short-waisted and quaint, trimmed with pearl passementerie. The neck was square, cut modestly low, and filled in with lace of a delicate, frosty pattern--Point d'Alencon. Underneath the gown lay piles of lingerie, all of the finest linen, daintily made by hand. Some of it was trimmed with real lace, some with crocheted edging, and the rest with hemstitched ruffles and feather-stitching.
There was another gown, much worn, of soft blue cashmere, some sea-shells, a necklace of uncut turquoises, the colour changed to green, a prayer-book, a little hymnal, and a bundle of letters, tied with a faded blue ribbon, which she did not touch. There was but one picture--an ambrotype, in an ornate case, of a handsome young man, with that dashing, dare-devil look in his eyes which has ever been attractive to women.
Ruth smiled as she put the treasures away, thinking that, had Fate thrown the dice another way, the young man might have been her esteemed and respected uncle. Then, all at once, it came to her that she had unthinkingly stumbled upon her aunt's romance.
She was not a woman to pry into others' secrets, and felt guilty as she fled from the attic, taking the lamp with her. Afterward, as she sat on the narrow piazza, basking in the warm Spring sunshine, she pieced out the love affair of Jane Hathaway's early girlhood after her own fashion.
She could see it all plainly. Aunt Jane had expected to be married to the dashing young man and had had her trousseau in readiness, when something happened. The folded paper would indicate that he was Charles Winfield, who had married some one else, but whether Aunt Jane had broken her engagement, or the possible Uncle Charles had simply taken a mate without any such formality, was a subject of conjecture.
Still, if the recreant lover had married another, would Aunt Jane have kept her treasure chest and her wedding gown? Ruth knew that she herself would not, but she understood that aunts were in a class by themselves. It was possible that Charles Winfield was an earlier lover, and she had kept the paper without any special motive, or, perhaps, for "auld lang syne."
Probably the letters would have disclosed the mystery, and the newspaper instinct, on the trail of a "story," was struggling with her sense of honour, but not for the world, now that she knew, would Ruth have read the yellowed pages, which doubtless held faded roses pressed between them.
The strings of sea-shells, and the larger ones, which could have come only from foreign shores, together with the light in the window, gave her a sudden clew. Aunt Jane was waiting for her lover and the lamp was a signal. If his name was Charles Winfield, the other woman was dead, and if not, the marriage notice was that of a friend or an earlier lover.
The explanation was reasonable, clear, and concise--what woman could ask for more? Yet there was something beyond it which was out of Miss Thorne's grasp--a tantalising something,