ures everywhere---here a dark little landscape, showing
the heart of some old forest, there a flaming garden, all red and blue
and purple in a glare of sunlight. In the alcove was an etching--the
head of a dream-child, and a misty water-color hung over Judy's desk.

"I did that myself," she said, as Anne examined it.

"Oh, do you paint?"

"Some," modestly.

"And play?" Anne's eyes were on the little piano in the alcove.

"Yes."

"Play now," pleaded Anne.

But Judy shook her head. "After dinner," she said. "The bell is
ringing now."

Dinner at Judge Jameson's was a formal affair, commencing with soup and
ending with coffee. It was served in the great dining-room where
silver dishes and tankards twinkled on the sideboard, and where the
light came in through stained-glass windows, so that Anne always had a
feeling that she was in church.

The Judge sat at the head of the table, and his sister, Mrs. Patterson,
at the foot. Judy was on one side and Anne on the other, and back of
them, a silent, competent butler spirited away their plates, and
substituted others with a sort of sleight-of-hand dexterity that almost
took Anne's breath away.

Anne and the Judge chatted together happily throughout the meal. The
Judge was very fond of the earnest maiden, whose grandmother had been
the friend of his youth, and his eyes went often from her sunny face to
that of the moody, silent Judy. "It will do Judy good to be with
Anne," he thought. "I am going to have them together as much as
possible."

"Why don't you get up a picnic to-morrow?" he suggested, as Perkins
passed the fingerbowls--a rite which always tried Anne's timid,
inexperienced soul, as did the mysteries of the half-dozen spoons and
forks that had stretched out on each side of her plate at the beginning
of the meal.

"You could get some of Anne's friends to join you," went on the Judge,
"and I'll let you have the three-seated wagon and Perkins; and Mary can
pack a lunch."

Judy raised two calm eyes from a scrutiny of the table-cloth.

"I hate picnics," she said.

Then as the Judge, with a disappointed look on his kind old face,
pushed back his chair, Judy rose and trailed languidly through the
dining-room and out into the hall.

Anne started to follow, but the hurt look on the Judge's face was too
much for her tender heart, and as she reached the door she turned and
came back.

"I think a picnic would be lovely," she said, a little surprised a