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affection for it, too, because she thought she looked nicer in it than in any other mirror at Silver Bush.
    â€œSure and it was always the flattering one,” said Judy, as Cuddles rubbed at the frame. “Minny’s the pretty face that’s looked into it.”
    â€œI wonder,” said Pat dreamily…passing carelessly through the hall just to make sure Cuddles was doing the polishing right…“if one came here some moonlit night one couldn’t see all the shadowy faces that once looked into it looking out again.”
    â€œOh, oh, ye’d nade the enchanted mirror of Castle McDermott for that,” chuckled Judy. “That looking glass wasn’t like other looking glasses. There did be a curse on it. I was always afraid av it. Be times it did be saming like a frind and thin agin like an inimy. And I was always wanting to look in it, in spite av me fear, jist to be seeing if innything looked out av it.”
    â€œAnd did anything ever, Judy?”
    â€œNiver a bit av it, girl dear. The looking glass wasn’t for common folks like mesilf. Niver did I be seeing innything worse than me own frickled face. But there did be thim that did.”
    â€œWhat did they see, Judy?”
    â€œOh, oh, there’s no time for that now. It’s me raisin gravy I must be seeing to this blissed minute.”
    Pat shut the hall door and set her back against it resolutely.
    â€œJudy, not one step do you stir from this hall till you’ve told us what was seen in the McDermott mirror, if there’s no raisin gravy made this Christmas.”
    â€œOh, oh”…Judy surrendered…“it’s mebbe as well to tell it whin Tillytuck can’t be claiming to have stipped out av the glass. Did ye be hearing him the other avening whin I was telling av the dance one Saturday night in South Glin that they kipt up too late…past the stroke av twilve…and the Bad Man Below intered? Sez me Tillytuck solemnly, ‘I rimimber it only too well. I was at that dance.’ ‘Indade,’ sez I, sarcastic-like, ‘ye must be an aged man, Tillytuck, for the dance was all av eighty years ago.’ But he carried it off wid a grin. Ye can’t shame that man. But I can’t be rimimbering all the tales av the looking glass now. There was a Kathleen McDermott once who was no better than she shud be and me fine lady whips out one night to meet her gintleman lover and run away wid him. But me grand gintleman was killed on his way to her and Kathleen hurried back home thinking no one wud know. But the doors were closed agin her. The McDermott had looked in the glass and seen it all. Bridget McDermott saw her soldier husband dying in India the night he was killed. But nobody iver knew what Nora McDermott saw for the pore liddle soul dropped the lamp she was holding and her dress caught fire and she was dead in two hours.”
    â€œOh!” Cuddles shivered deliciously. “Why did they keep such a terrible thing in the castle?”
    â€œSure, it belonged there,” said Judy mysteriously. “Ye wudn’t have thim move it. And it was be way av being frindly as often as not. Eileen McDermott knew her man was alive, shipwrecked on a South Say island, whin iveryone else was sure for a whole winter that he was drowned. She saw him in the glass. And the McDermott av me own time saw a minuet danced in it one night and niver was inny the worse av it. And now I’m getting back to me kitchen. I’ve wasted enough time palavering wid ye.”
    â€œHalf the fun of making preparations for anything is in talking things over,” reflected Cuddles, giving the mirror a final whisk. It held no ghosts. But Cuddles felt secretly satisfied with what she saw in it.

CHAPTER 6
    Eventually everything was in readiness. The table beautifully set…Pat made Cuddles take off the tablecloth three times before it was smooth enough to suit her…the house full of delicious