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."