idn't the Sisters come askin' me
the other day if I had your receipt for the milk-rice? Jim says there's
a man for ivery woman if she did but know it.--There now, I'm glad to
see yer smilin' an' lookin' like yer old self! Just tell me if the
curtains be up straight? Jim can't abide annything that ain't on the
square. Straight, be they?"

"Yes, straight as a string," said Aileen, laughing outright at Freckles'
eloquence--the eloquence of one who was wont to be slow of speech before
matrimony loosened her tongue and home love taught her the right word in
the right place.

"Straight, is it? Then I'll mount down an' we'll sit out in the kitchen
an' hem the rest. It's Doosie Caukins has begged the loan of the two
little gells for the afternoon. The twins seem to me most like my
own--rale downright swate gells, an' it's hopin' I am they'll do well
when it' comes to their marryin'."

Aileen laughed merrily at the matrimonial persistence of her old chum's
thoughts.

"Oh, Maggie, you are an incorrigible matchmaker!"

She picked up the baby and the yards of muslin she had been measuring
for window lengths; leaving Maggie to follow, she went out into the
kitchen and deposited Billy in the basket-crib beside her chair. Maggie
joined her in a few minutes.

"It seems like old times for you an' me to be chattin' together again so
friendly-like--put a finger's length into the hem of the long ones; do
you remember when Sister Angelica an' you an' me was cuddled together to
watch thim dance the minute over at the Van Ostends'?--Och, you
darlin'!"

She rose from her chair and caught up the baby who was holding out both
arms to her and trying in his semi-articulate way to indicate his
preference of her lap to the basket.

"What fun we had!" Aileen spoke half-heartedly; the mention of that name
intensified the pain of an ever present thought.

"An' did ye read her marriage in the papers, I guess 't was a year
gone?"

Aileen nodded.

"Jim read it out to me wan night after supper, an' I got so homesick of
a suddin' for the Caukinses, an' you, an' the quarries, an' Mrs.
Googe--it was before me b'y come--that I fell to cryin' an' nearly cried
me eyes out; an' Jim promised me then and there he'd come back to
Flamsted for good and all. But he couldn't help sayin': 'What the divil
are ye cryin' about, Maggie gell? I was readin' of the weddin' to ye,
and thinkin' to hearten ye up a bit, an' here ye be cryin' fit to break
yer heart,