for a fresh circle.

"Stop immediately, Helen! Why ever can't you go and play quietly
with your doll, and not do things like this?" said her father
irascibly.

"An' I was afther doin' it just to pleasure him," she said,
apparently addressing the dandelions.

"Well, it won't 'pleasure him' to have to provide you with cork
legs and re-stock the garden," he said dryly: "Put it down."

"Sure, an' it's illigence itsilf this side: you wouldn't be
afther leaving half undone, like a man with only one cheek shaved."

Judy affected an Irish brogue at some occult reason of her own.

"Sure an' if ye'd jist stip down and examine it yirself, it's
quite aisy ye'd be in yer moind."

The Captain hid a slight smile in his moustache. The little girl
looked so comical, standing there in her short old pink frock, a
broken-brimmed hat on her tangle of dark curls, her eyes
sparkling, her face flushed, the great scythe in her hands, and the
saucy words on her lips.

He came down and examined it: it was done excellently well, like
most of the things miss Judy attempted--mischief always included:
and her little black-stockinged legs were still in a good state of
preservation.

"Hum! Well, you can finish it then, as Pat's busy. How did you
learn to mow, young lady of wonderful accomplishments?" (he looked
at her questioningly); "and what made you set yourself such a task?"

Judy gave her curls a quick push off her hot forehead.

"(A) Faix, it was inborn in me," she answered instantly; "and
(B)--sure, and don't I lo-o-ove you and delaight to plaize you?"

He went in again slowly, thoughtfully. Judy always mystified
him. He understood her the least of any of his children, and
sometimes the thought of her worried him. At present she was only
a sharp, clever, and frequently impertinent child; but he felt
she was utterly different from the other six, and it gave him
an aggrieved kind of feeling when he thought about it, which was
not very often.

He remembered her own mother had often said she trembled for
Judy's future. That restless fire of hers that shone out of her
dancing eyes, and glowed scarlet on her cheeks in excitement, and
lent amazing energy and activity to her young, lithe body, would
either make a noble, daring, brilliant woman of her, or else she
would be shipwrecked on rocks the others would never come to, and
it would flame up higher and higher and consume her.

"Be careful of Judy" had been almost the las