he came up.

"Call me Judith," said the incensed young lady. "Judy is my pet name,
and I keep it for--my friends."

Launcelot gave a long whistle.

"Say, do you talk like this to Anne?" he asked.

"Like what?"

"In this--er--straight from the shoulder sort of fashion?"

"No. Anne is my friend."

Launcelot shook his head. "You can't have Anne for a friend unless you
have me."

"Why not?"

"She was my friend first."

"Oh, well," Judy shrugged her shoulders and shut her eyes again, "it is
too hot to argue."

There was a long silence, and then Launcelot said: "Don't you want to
fish?"

"I hate fishing."

"Or to pick wild flowers?"

"I hate--" Judy had started her usual ungracious formula, before she
recognized its untruth. "Well, I don't want to pick them now," she
amended, "I'd rather stay here."

"But you are not going to stay here."

"Why not?"

"You are going to help me cook those fish."

"I won't."

"Oh, yes you will. Come on."

"Oh, well. If you won't let me alone."

She slipped out of the hammock and picked up her hat. There was a
tired droop to her slender young figure. "No, I am not going to let
you alone," said Launcelot quietly. "You poor little thing."

She looked at him, startled.

"Why?" she breathed.

"You are lonely. That's why. You've got to do something. You just
think and think and think--and get miserable--I know--I've been there."

It came out haltingly, the boyish expression of sympathy and
understanding. And the sympathy combined with a hitherto unmet
masterfulness conquered Judy. For a moment she stood very still, then
she turned to him an illumined face.

"You may call me--Judy," she said shyly, then slipped past him and ran
to the fire.

When he reached her, she was bending over the pan.

"How nice they look," she said, as Launcelot turned the fish, and they
lay all crisp and brown in an appetizing row.

"You shall do the next," said Launcelot, smiling a little as he glanced
at her absorbed face.

So while he made the coffee, Judy fried more bacon, and they slipped
six fish into the big pan.

"Mine don't seem to brown as yours did," she told him, anxiously.

"Perhaps the fat wasn't hot enough," was Launcelot's suggestion. "It
has to be smoking."

"Oh, dear," sighed Judy, "mine are going to look light brown instead of
lovely and golden like yours."

"Put on some more wood." Launcelot's tone was abstracted. He was
measuring the coff