XV
AN OLD STRING BONNET

I care not what it is, so long as it be old; but if an object has passed through other hands than mine, it gathers an indefinable charm about it. Old china, old cups and saucers, whether they be ugly or beautiful, are priceless by reason of that faint murmuring of other lives which clings around them. In the mere tinkling of the china as it is brought in upon the tray, I can hear a thousand conversations and gossipings coming dimly to my ears out of the wealth of years which is heaped upon them.

For this reason would I always use the old china which it is my good fortune to possess. A breakfast-table, a tea-table spread with china which can tell you nothing than that it has but lately come from the grimy potteries, makes poor company to sit down with. Yet let it be but Spode, or Worcester, or Lowestoft, and every silence that falls upon you is filled with the whisperings of these priceless companions.

I have no sympathy with the collector who locks his china away because it is rare and worth so much in pounds and shillings and pence. He is no more than a gaoler, incarcerating in an eternal prison the very best friends he has, and just, if you please, because they are his.

What if there is the risk of their being broken! A rivet here, a rivet there will make them speak again. I have a Spode milk-jug with forty-five rivets in it and it is more eloquent to me than all the modern china you could find, however perfect it may be. In fact, I would sooner have a piece that has been mended. It shows that in those long-ago days, where all romance lies hiding for us now, it shows that they cared for their treasures and would not let them be discarded because they happened upon evil times. I have also an old blue and white tea-pot with a silver spout. A dealer sniffed at it the other day.

“May have been good once,” said he.

“’Tis better now,” said I. “So would you and I be if we’d been through the wars.”

“Do you mean to say you’d prefer me with a wooden arm?” he asked.

“I would,” said I. “You’d be a better man. You couldn’t grasp so much.”

But the other day I found a treasure. Miss B——, the old spinster lady in whose farm I have my little dwelling, is by way of being the reincarnation of a jackdaw. She has cupboards and chests in every room in which lie hidden a thousand old things which have been in her family for years. Yesterday, in turning out an old drawer, I came across a quaint little contrivance that looked like a string bag, only it was beautifully made in three parts, all composed of a wonderful lace-work of fine string and knitted together, each one by a delicate stitching of white horsehair.

I brought it out into the kitchen, tenderly in my hand.

“Whatever is this?” I asked.

She took it in her fingers and looked at it for a moment, then, inconsequently, she laid it down upon the kitchen table.

“That—” said she, “that was my great, great grandmother’s bonnet. She wore it up till the time she died.”

“Why, it’s nearly two hundred years old!” I exclaimed.

“If it’s a day,” said she.

I gazed at it for some moments. Then suddenly it seemed to move, to raise itself from the table. Another instant and it was spread out, decked with a tiny piece of pink ribbon, on the head of an old lady—but oh, so old! Her silvery white hair thrust out in little curls and coils through the mesh of the string, and there she was, with a great broad skirt and big puff sleeves bobbing me a curtsey before my very eyes.

I turned to Miss B——

“Do you see?” I asked.

“See what?” said she.

“Your great, great grandmother.”

“I never saw her in my life,” she replied.

“But under the string bonnet!” I exclaimed.

“Goodness! That ’ud fall to pieces if any one tried to put it on now. It’s no good to me. You can have it if you like.”

Then I understood why she could not see her great, great grandmother, and, with a feeling of compassion for her loneliness, I took the old lady into my arms. Miss B—— went to the sink to peel some potatoes.

“You’re perfectly beautiful,” I whispered, and her old face wrinkled all over with smiles.

“They used to tell me that when I was a girl,” said she.

“You’re more beautiful now,” said I.

“What’s that you’re saying?” asked Miss B—— over her shoulder.

“What I should have said,” said I, “if I’d lived two hundred years ago.”