Bud wrinkled her brows. “Ah, dear!” she sighed, “we may be too joco! And I’m to sing, sing, sing even if I’m as—timmer as a cask, and Robert Bruce is the saviour of his country.” She marched across the room, trailing Ailie’s cloak with her, in an absurd caricature of Bell’s brisk manner. Yet not so much the actress engrossed in her performance, but what she tried to get a glimpse of what her aunt concealed.
“You need not try to see it,” said Ailie, smiling, with the secret in her breast. “You must honestly guess.”
“Better’n dolls and candies, oh, my!” said Bud; “I hope it’s not the Shorter Catechism,” she concluded, looking so grave that her aunt laughed.
“It’s not the Catechism,” said Ailie; “try again. Oh, but you’ll never guess! It’s a key.”
“A key?” repeated Bud, plainly cast down.
“A gold key,” said her aunt.
“What for?” asked Bud.
Ailie sat herself down on the floor and drew the child upon her knees. She had a way of doing that which made her look like a lass in her teens; indeed, it was most pleasing if the banker-man could just have seen it! “A gold key,” she repeated, lovingly, in Bud’s ear. “A key to a garden—the loveliest garden, with flowers that last the whole year round. You can pluck and pluck at them and they’re never a single one the less. Better than sweet peas! But that’s not all, there’s a big garden-party to be at it—”
“My! I guess I’ll put on my best glad rags,” said Bud. “And the hat with pink.” Then a fear came to her face. “Why, Aunt Ailie, you can’t have a garden-party this time of the year,” and she looked at the window down whose panes the rain was now streaming.
“This garden-party goes on all the time,” said Ailie. “Who cares about the weather? Only very old people; not you and I. I’ll introduce you to a lot of nice people—Di Vernon, and—you don’t happen to know a lady called Di Vernon, do you, Bud?”