The huge bag soon came tumbling down the stairs, with soft thuds; but the little forms that, for the time, had given it life and motion, did not appear. Donald gladly drew it into the little room, where his hostess soon extracted from its depths a portly black roll.
Alas! To the boyish mind a bundle made of scores of different sorts of black pieces rolled together is anything but expressive. On first opening it, Donald looked hopelessly at the motley heap; but the kind woman helped him somewhat by rapidly throwing piece after piece aside, with, "That can't be it--that's like little Tom's trousers;" "Nor that,--that's what I wore for poor mother;" "Nor that--that's to mend my John's Sunday coat;" and so on, till there were not more than a dozen scraps left. Of these, three showed that they had been cut with a pair of scissors, but the others were torn pieces, and of different kinds of black goods. Don felt these pieces, held them up to the light, and in despair, was just going to beg her to let him have them all for future investigation, when his face suddenly brightened.
Putting one of the pieces between his lips, he shook his head with rather a disgusted expression, as though the flavor were anything but agreeable, then tried another and another (the woman meantime regarding him with speechless amazement), till at last, holding out a strip and smacking his lips, he exclaimed:
"I have it! This is it! It's as salt as brine!"
"Good land!" she cried; "salt! who ever heard of such a thing,--and in my rag-bag? How could that be?"
Don paid no attention to her. Tasting another piece, that proved on closer examination to be of the same material, he found it to be equally salt.
His face displayed a comical mixture of nausea and delight as he sprang to his feet, crying out:
"Oh! ma'am, I can never thank you enough. These are the pieces of Ellen Lee's gown, I am confident--unless they have been salted in some way since you've had them."
"Not they, sir; I can warrant that. But who under the canopy ever thought of the taste of a shipwrecked gown before!"
"Smell these," he said, holding the pieces toward her. "Don't you notice a sort of salt-sea odor about them?"
"Not a bit," she answered, emphatically, shaking her head. Then, still cautiously sniffing at the pieces, she added: "Indeed and I _do_ fancy so now. It's faint, but it's there, sir. Fifteen years ago! How salt does cling to things! The poor woman must have been pulled out of the very sea!"