she had been reading when Judy plucked it out of her hand.
"Listen."
Judy did listen, but with her sullen eyes staring out of the window and
her shoulders hunched up aggressively. When Anne stopped however, she
said: "Go on," and when the chapter was finished, she asked, "Who wrote
that?"
"Robert Louis Stevenson. He was a lovely man, and he wrote lovely
books, and he died, and they buried him in Samoa on the top of a
mountain. He wrote some verses called 'Requiem.' I think you would
like them, Judy."
"What are they?"
Anne quoted softly, her sweet little voice deep with feeling, and her
blue eyes dark with emotion.
"'Under the wide and stormy sky,
Dig the grave and let me lie,
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.
"'This be the verse you grave for me:
"Here he lies where he longed to be;
Home is the sailor--home from the sea,
And the hunter home from the hill."'"
"'Home is the sailor, home from the sea--'" echoed Judy, under her
breath. "How fine that he could say it like that, Anne. Tell me about
him."
All the discontent had gone from her face, and she lay back among the
cushions of the window-seat quietly, while Anne told her of the young
life that had ended in a land of exile. Of a singer whose song had
been stilled so soon, but who would not be forgotten as long as men
honor a brave heart and a gentle spirit.
"Let me see the book," and Judy stretched out her hand, and Anne gave
her "Kidnapped" unselfishly, glad to see the softened look in Judy's
eyes, and as the morning passed and the two girls read on and on, they
did not notice that the rain had stopped and that the parted clouds
showed a gleam of watery sun.
And when lunch was announced, Judy laid her book down with a sigh, and
after lunch, in spite of clearing weather, she read until twilight, and
having finished one book, would have started another, if Anne had not
protested.
"You will wear yourself out," she said, as the intense Judy looked up
with blurred eyes and wrinkled forehead. "Let's have a run on the
beach."
Judy never did anything by halves, and after her introduction to books
that she liked, she outread Anne. And as time went on it was her books
that soothed her in her restless moods, and because there were in her
father's library the writings of the greatest men and the best men who
have given their thoughts to the world, Judy was gradually molded into
finer g
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