wit, and a knack of
discovering fun in everything, and in later years it was in caricature,
not unkind, but truly humorous, that Judy made her greatest successes,
and achieved some little fame.

CHAPTER XVIII

JUDY KEEPS A PROMISE

"What's your talent, Anne?" asked Judy, one evening, as she lay on the
couch reading "Sesame and Lilies." It was raining again outside, but
in the fireplace a great fire was blazing, and rosy little Anne was in
front of it, popping corn.

"Haven't any," said Anne, watching the white kernels bob up and down.
"I can't draw and I can't play, and I can't sing or converse--or
anything."

Judy looked at her thoughtfully. "Well, we will have to find something
that you can do," she said, for Judy liked to lead and have others
follow, and having decided upon art as her life-work, she wanted Anne
to choose a similar path. "I wish I could take up bookbinding or
wood-carving, or--or dentistry--"

"Why, Judy Jameson." Anne turned an amazed hot face towards her.
"Why, Judy, you wouldn't like to pull teeth, would you?"

"It isn't what we like to do, Ruskin says," said Judy, calmly, "it's
usefulness that counts."

"Oh, well, I can wash dishes and dust and take care of old people and
pets," said placid Anne, opening the cover of the popper and letting
out delicious whiffs of hot corn.

Judy shuddered. "I hate those things," she said. "I couldn't wash
dishes, Anne. It is so dreadful for your hands."

She went back to her book, and Anne poured the hot corn into a big bowl
and salted it.

"Have some?" she asked the absorbed reader.

Without taking her eyes from her book, Judy stretched out her hand,
then all at once she flashed a glance into the rosy face so close to
her own.

"Anne," she said, almost humbly, "do you know you are more of a Ruskin
girl than I am? He says that every girl, every day, should do
something really useful about the house--go into the kitchen, and sew,
and learn how to fold table-cloths, and things, like that. And you
know all of those things--and how to help the poor--and I--I am always
trying to do some great thing, and I never really help any one. Not
any one, Anne--not a single soul--"

"But you are so clever," said little Anne.

"But people don't love you just because you are clever, and it isn't
clever people that make others the happiest," and Judy dropped her book
and gazed deep into the flames as if seeking there an answer to the
problems of