"How often when at work I'm sittin',
An' musin' sadly on the days of yore,
I think I see my Katey knittin',
An' the children playin' by the cabin door;
I think I see the neighbours' faces
All gathered round, their long-lost friend to see,
Oh! though no one here knows how fair that place is,
Heaven knows how dear my poor home was to me."
As she sang the last word she lifted the corner of her apron to dry her eyes, and saw Mollie.
"Is it yourself, Miss Mollie, or is it your ghost? May the Lord look sideways on me ould plaid shawl! You gave me a start then, for 'twas only this minute I looked to see an' there was no one there at all."
"It's me," said Mollie, swallowing down a few last tears and wondering if she was speaking the truth—perhaps it was her ghost! "Where's everybody?"
"They're all dressin' themselves for the balloonin', an' may the Lord preserve Master Hugh an' keep his bones from breakin'. 'Tis a temptin' o' Providence an' his mother sailin' on the salt seas, poor soul. The way the death-watch has been tickin' on me this wake past is something cruel."
"What's the ballooning?" Mollie began, but before Bridget could answer Prudence appeared at the house door, dressed in festive pink muslin and a white hat wreathed with rosebuds.
"Come along, Mollie," she said, "and don't listen to Bridget croaking. If I died every time she hears my death-watch tick, or sees my shroud in a candle, there would be a whole cemetery full of my graves by this time. There's a yellow muslin frock for you."
They had reached the girls' bedroom, which Mollie recognized as the first of the rooms she had slept in. They were back in the house with Hugh's tree and the yellow-carpeted garden. She looked admiringly at the pretty muslin frock on the bed. It was white, powdered over with tiny dots of pale yellow, and made with filmy flounces reaching to the waist; a frilled fichu, or "cross-over" as Prue called it, came over the front of the little bodice, falling slightly below the waist and tied behind with pale-yellow ribbons. A wide white hat was wreathed with primroses and green leaves. It was indeed a charming frock, and so modern that Mollie thought she might have worn it at home without anyone being surprised at anything except her unusual smartness. Prudence and Grizzel wore dresses fashioned in precisely the same way, but Prue's muslin was sprigged with pink rosebuds, while Grizzel's dots were green.
"Come along, my rainbow," said Papa. "If we are late we won't get a good place."
They walked down the cypress-bordered path of Mollie's first visit, and joined the stream of people going along the road, like themselves, to see the balloon ascent. Mollie felt very gay and festive; everybody feminine wore light frocks, the sun was bright but not too hot, the grass was green, and the whole countryside was frothed with almond-blossom, white and pink. Birds flew briskly about, indifferent to balloons, and horses with shining chestnut coats trotted along the well-kept road, lifting their slim ankles and polished heels in an elegant way very different from the gait of London cab-horses.