The day that he left it rained, and the day after, and the day after that, and on the fourth day, when the sea was gray and the sky was gray and the world seemed blotted out by the blinding torrents, Judy, who had been pacing through the house like a caged wild thing, came into the library, and found Anne curled up in the window-seat with a book.

"I came down here with all sorts of good resolutions," she said, fiercely, as she stood by the window, looking out, "but if this rain doesn't stop, I shall do something desperate. I hate to be shut in."

Anne did not look up. She was reading a book breathlessly, and not until Judy had jerked it out of her hand and had flung it across the room did she come to herself with a little cry.

"I shall do something desperate," reiterated Judy, stormily. "Do you hear, Anne?"

Anne smiled up at her—a preoccupied smile.

"Oh, Judy," she said, still seeing the visions conjured up by her book. "Oh, Judy, you ought to read this—"

"You know I don't like to read, Anne." Judy's tone was irritable.

"You would like this," said Anne, gently, as she drew Judy down beside her. "It's about the sea." She opened the despised book at the place where 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 girlhood, finer womanhood, than could have come to her by any other association.

She read Stevenson through in a week, and then began on Ruskin; for her thoughtful mind, starved so long of food that it needed, craved solid things, and Judy, who knew much of pictures and paintings, found in Ruskin's theories a great deal that delighted and interested her.

"You'll never get through," said Anne, with a dismayed glance at the long rows of brown volumes high up on the shelves. "I don't like anything but stories, and Ruskin preaches awfully."

"You ought to like him, then," said Judy, wickedly, "you good little Anne."

"Oh, don't," protested Anne, reproachfully, "don't call me that, Judy."

"Well, bad little Anne, then," said Judy, composedly, from the top of the step-ladder, where she was examining the titles of the books and enjoying herself generally.

"You're such a tease," said Anne with a sigh.

"And you are so serious, little Annekins," and Judy smiled down at her.

"I like Ruskin," she announced, later. "He's a little hard to understand sometimes, but he knows a lot about art. I am going to take up my drawing again. He says that youth is the time to do things, and a girl ought not to fritter away her time."

"No, indeed," said Anne, virtuously. "Only don't get too tired, Judy."

But it was Anne who was tired, before Judy's enthusiasm wore itself out, for she was pressed into service as a model, and she served in turn as A Blind Girl, A Dancing Girl, A Greek Maiden, Rebecca at the Well, Marguerite, and Lorelei.

The last was an inspiration. Anne perched on a rock around which the breakers dashed appropriately, with her hair down, and with filmy garments fluttering in the wind, combed her golden locks in the heat of the blazing sun.

"It's broiling hot out here, Judy," she complained as that indefatigable artist sat on the beach with her easel before her, in a blue work-apron, and with a dab of charcoal on her nose.

"Oh, you look just lovely, Anne," Judy assured her, with the cruel indifference of genius. "You're just lovely. I think this is the best I have done yet. Think what a picture you will make."

"Think how my nose will peel," mourned Anne, forlornly.

"Die schoenste Jungfrau sitzet Dort oben wunderbar, Ihr goldnes Geschmeide blitzet, Sie kaemmt ihr gold'nes Haar."

sang Judy, whose residence abroad had made her familiar with many folk-songs.

Sie kaemmt es mit gold'nem Kamme, Und singt ein Lied dabei;"

"—Anne, you have the loveliest hair," she interrupted her song to say.

But Anne was tired. "I don't think that the Lorelei was very nice," she said, "to make men drown themselves just because she wants to comb her hair on a rock—"

"She didn't care," said Judy, sagely. "The men didn't have to let their old boats be wrecked."

"But her voice was so wonderful they just had to follow—"

"No, they didn't," declared Judy. "You just ask your grandmother. She says nobody has to go where they don't want to go, and I think she is right, and if those sailors had sailed away the minute they heard the Lorelei begin to sing they would have been safe."

"Well, maybe they would," agreed Anne, hastily, for Judy had stopped work to talk. "Judy, I shall fall off this rock if you don't finish pretty soon."

"All right, Annekins, just one minute," and Judy dashed in a drowning sailor or two, fluffed the heroine's hair into entrancing curliness, added a few extra rays to the sparkling comb, and held up the sketch.

"There," she said, triumphantly.

Anne slid from the rock, and waded in to look.

"It isn't a bit like me," she criticized, holding up her wet and flowing draperies.

"Well, you see I couldn't put in your dimples and your chubbiness, for although they are dear in you, Anne, they are not suitable for the purposes of art," and Judy stood back with a grown-up air and gazed upon her masterpiece. Then she caught Anne around the waist and danced with her on the beach.

"Ich glaube, die Wellen verschlingen Am Ende Schiffer und Kahn; Und das hat mit ihrem Singen Die Lorelei gethan."

"You wicked little Lorelei," she panted, as they sat down on the sand.

"I'm not wicked," said Anne, composedly, "and the next time you use me for a model, Judy, I wish you would get an easier place than on that old rock."

"You shall be Juliet in the tomb," promised Judy, "and you can go to sleep if you want to."

But she let Anne rest for awhile, and used Perkins as a model.

Her first sketch of him was very clever—a sketch in which the stately butler posed as "The Neptune of the Kitchen." He sat on a great turtle, with a toasting-fork instead of a trident, with a necklace of oyster crackers, a crown of pickles, and a smile that was truly Perkins's own.

That sketch taught Judy her niche in the temple of art. She was not destined to be a great artist, but she had a keen 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 life.

"People love you, Judy."

"Sometimes they do, and some people—but my awful temper, Anne," and Judy sighed.

"You don't flare up half as much as you used." Anne's tone was consoling. She had finished popping the corn, and she sat down on the floor beside the couch on which Judy lay, and munched the crisp kernels luxuriously.

"No, I don't," confessed Judy, "but it's an awful fight, Anne. You have helped me a lot."

"Me?" asked the rosy maiden in astonishment. "Why, how have I helped you, Judy?"

"By your example, Annekins," said Judy, sitting up. "You're such a dear."

At which praise the rosy maiden got rosier than ever, and shook her loosened hair over her happy eyes.

The firelight flickered on the beautiful dark face on the cushions, and on the fair little one that rested against Judy's dress.

"We are such friends, aren't we, Judy?" whispered Anne, as she reached up and curled her plump hand into Judy's slender fingers. "Almost like sisters, aren't we, Judy?"

"Just like sisters, Annekins," said Judy, dreamily, with a responsive pressure.

Outside the wind moaned and groaned, and the rain beat against the panes. "I have never seen such a rainy season," said Judy, as a blast shook the house. "But I rather like it when we are so cozy and warm and happy, Anne."

The pop-corn was all eaten, and Anne was gazing into the fire, half asleep, when suddenly she started up.

"What's that, Judy?" she cried.

Judy raised her eyes from her book.

"What?" she asked, abstractedly.

"That sound at the window."

"I didn't hear anything."

"It was like a rap."

"It was the rain."

"Well, maybe it was," and Anne settled back again. Presently her hand slipped and dropped, and Judy, feeling the movement, looked down and smiled, for little Anne was asleep.

Judy tucked a cushion behind the weary head, and was settling back for another quiet hour with her book, when all at once she sat up straight, listening.

Then she rolled from the couch quickly, without waking Anne, and went to the window and peered out. She could see nothing but the driving rain, but as she turned to leave there came again the sound that had startled her.

The window was a French one, opening outward. Very softly she unlatched it.

"Who's there?" she asked, wondering if she should have called Perkins.

"Come to the door," said a voice, and a dripping figure appeared within the circle of light. "Come out a minute. It's me—Tommy Tolliver."

Anne slept on as Judy went out and closed the door behind her.

"Why, Tommy," she said, trying to see him in the darkness, "how in the world did you get down here?"

"I have run away again," said Tommy, defiantly, "and I've come to you to help me, Judy."

"What!"

"You said you would help me, Judy. That's why I came."

"But—"

"Oh, don't try to get out of it," blazed Tommy, who was wet and tired and shivering, "you said you would. And if you back down now—well—" He left the sentence unfinished and his voice broke.

"When did I promise, Tommy?" asked poor Judy, in a dazed way.

"The day I came back to Fairfax."

It seemed like a dream to Judy, that day in the woods when she had first met the children of Fairfax,—Launcelot and Amelia and Nannie,—and she had entirely forgotten her reckless promise.

"Sit down," she faltered, "and tell me what you want me to do."

At the side of the house where they were sheltered somewhat from the rain Tommy outlined his plan.

"I want you to take me down the bay in your sailboat. I had money enough to get here, and if you can help me to get to the Point, a friend of mine has promised me a place on one of the ocean liners."

"But Tommy—"

"Don't say 'but' to me, Judy," and Judy recognized a new note in Tommy's voice. There was less of the old, weak swagger, and more determination. "I am going, and that's all there is to it."

"When do you want to start?" she asked, after a pause.

"The first thing in the morning, if you can get away," said Tommy.

"I can't go until evening. We are to spend the day with some friends of ours, the Bartons. But I can take you down by moonlight. It's a couple of hours' ride. I suppose we shall have to tell Anne."

"I hate to," said Tommy.

"Why?"

"Oh, Anne is such a good little thing—and—and—she believes in me—Judy."

"But if it is right for you to go, you shouldn't care—"

"I don't know whether it is right or not," said Tommy, doggedly, "and what's more, I don't care, Judy. I am going and that's the end of it."

"Well!" Judy stood up, shivering. "It's awfully cold out here, Tommy; you'd better come in."

"Are you going to help me?" demanded Tommy. "I sha'n't go in unless you are."

"What will you do?"

"Tramp on. Guess I can manage for another day. I've only had a slice of bread and a tomato to-day."

"Tommy Tolliver!" said Judy, shocked. "Why, you must be starved. I'll go right in and get you something."

"Are you going to help me to get away?" he insisted.

"I must think about it."

"But you promised."

"I am not sure that I exactly promised," hesitated Judy.

"You're afraid."

"I am not."

"Aw, you are—or you'd do it."

That was touching Judy on a tender point. She was proud of her courage—none of her race had ever been cowards.

Besides, as she stood there with the wind and the waves beating their wild song into her ears, all the recklessness of her nature came uppermost. It would be glorious to sail down the bay. The water would be rough, and the wind would fill out the white sails of the little boat, and they would fly, fly, and the goal for Tommy would be freedom.

"I'll do it," she said, suddenly. "I'll do it, Tommy. We Jamesons never break a promise, and I'm not afraid."

They decided not to tell Anne.

"It would just worry her," said Judy, decidedly, "and I can get some food and things out to you after Anne goes to bed, and you can sleep in the boat-house. We can start in the morning."

It was a wild scheme, but before they had finished they felt quite uplifted. In their youth and inexperience, they imagined that Tommy's last dash for liberty was positively heroic, and Judy went in, feeling like one dedicated to a cause.

She found Anne rubbing her eyes sleepily.

"Why, have you been out, Judy?" she gasped, wide awake. "You are all wet."

"It's fine on the porch," said Judy, putting her soaked hair back from her face. "I—I was tired of the heat of the room, and—it was stifling. Let's go to bed, Anne."

"Aren't you going to finish your book?" Anne asked, wondering, for Judy was something of a night-owl, and hated early hours.

Judy picked up "Sesame and Lilies," which lay open on the couch, and shut it with a bang.

"No," she said, shortly, "I am not going to finish it to-night—I don't know whether I shall ever finish it, Anne. I'm not Ruskin's kind of girl, Anne. I can't 'sit on a cushion and sew a fine seam,' and I don't think it is any use for me to try."

Anne stared at the change that had come over her. "Well, you are my kind of girl," she said at last, and as they went up-stairs together, she slipped her hand into Judy's arm. "I love you, dearly, Judy," she said.

But Judy smiled down at her vaguely, for her mind was on Tommy, crouched out there in the rain, and in imagination she was not Judy Jameson, commonplacely going to bed at nine o'clock, but a heroine of history, dedicated to the cause of one Thomas, the Downtrodden.



CHAPTER XIX

PERKINS CLEANS THE SILVER

All the next day, Tommy skulked in the shadow of the pier and in the boat-house, whence during the morning Judy made her way laden with mysterious bundles and various baggage. At noon she departed for Lutie Barton's, leaving Anne, who had a cold, at home.

After Judy's departure, Anne wandered listlessly about the house. She tried to read, to sew a little, to pick out some simple tunes on Judy's piano, but thoughts of the little gray house, of the little grandmother, of Becky and Belinda, came between her and her occupations, so that at last, late in the afternoon, she sought the society of Perkins, who was in the dining-room cleaning silver.

"I believe I am homesick, Perkins," said Anne, perching herself in a great mahogany chair opposite him.

"Well, it ain't to be wondered at," said Perkins, as he picked up a huge cake-dish and began to work on it, energetically. "It ain't to be wondered at. You ain't ever been away from home much, Miss Anne."

"It is lovely not to have anything to do," said Anne. "That is, it is nice in a way, but do you know, Perkins, I sometimes just wish there were some rooms to dust or something, but you and the maids keep everything so clean," and Anne sighed a sigh that came from the depths of her housewifely soul.

"You might dip these cups in hot water and wipe them as I gets them finished," suggested Perkins, handing her several quaint little mugs, which he had placed in a row in front of him.

"Aren't they dear," Anne said, enthusiastically. "Why this one says 'Judith.' Is it Judy's, Perkins?"

"No, Miss, that was her great-grand-mother's, and that one with 'John' on it is the Judge's, and the one with 'Philip' is Miss Judy's father's—they are christening cups, Miss—six generations of them."

"Oh, how lovely," said Anne, and she handled them lovingly, dipping them into clear hot water, and polishing them until they shone.

"Judy never speaks of her father, lately," she said, as she placed the "Philip" cup on the sideboard.

"No, Miss, but she thinks of him a lot," said Perkins, with a shake of his old head. "I saw her this morning, Miss, standing in front of his picture in the hall, and there were tears in her eyes, Miss, and then all at once she whirled around and ran away, and her face had a wild look on it, Miss."

"Do you know, Perkins," said little Anne, stopping work for a minute and speaking earnestly, "do you know that I think Judy would be different if she only knew something about him. The uncertainty makes her unhappy, and then she does reckless things just to get away from herself."

"Yes, Miss," said Perkins, "and there ain't a morning that she don't put fresh flowers in front of that there picture, and there ain't a night that she don't kiss her hand to it from the top of the stairs."

"I know," sighed Anne. "Poor Judy."

"When will the Judge be back?" she asked after awhile.

But at that Perkins shut up like a clam. "I don't know, Miss," he snapped. "It's best for you not to ask too many questions, Miss."

Anne flushed. "Oh, of course I won't, Perkins," she said, "if you don't like to have me—" and she was very quiet, until the old butler, with a glance at her troubled face, said, "I don't care how many questions you axes, Miss, but the Judge might."

And Anne smiled at him, with radiant forgiveness.

"Isn't all this silver a lot of care, Perkins?" she asked, to clear the air.

"It is that," answered Perkins, "and yet there isn't half as much of it as there is at the Judge's in Fairfax. Only the Judge keeps his locked up in a safe, all except the things we uses every day. But here they just puts it on the sideboard, where it is a temptation to burglars—with them long windows opening out on the porch, and the curtains drawn back half the time. I don't call it safe, Miss, I surely don't."

"But there aren't any burglars around here, are there, Perkins?" and Anne stopped rubbing the cups to look at him anxiously.

"Nobody knows whether there is or not," grumbled Perkins. "There might be for all they know. It ain't fair to the servants, Miss, for to let them lie around loose this way. Mrs. Adams says so, too, but the Judge don't pay no attention to things since the Captain left, and Miss Judy is too young to bother."

"They wouldn't like to lose these cups," said Anne, as she finished the last one, and arranged them in a squat little row on the shelf.

"They wouldn't like to lose any of it," returned Perkins, putting a great soup-ladle back into its flannel bag. "It's all old and it's all family silver, and people ought to take care of it, and when the Judge comes back I am going to tell him so, Miss."

"Anne," said Judy, peeping in at the door, "I'm back, and Lutie Barton is with me. Come on in and see her."

"Oh, dear," said Anne, with a dismayed glance at her spattered apron, "I look like a sight."

"Run up the back way and fix up," said Judy, "and I'll talk to her until you come down."

Lutie Barton brought with her the gossip of the town. There had been a dance at the big hotel the night before, a sailing party down the bay in the afternoon had been caught in a thunder shower, and all the girls' hats had been ruined, and there had been a burglary at one of the cottages in an outlying district.

Anne jumped when they said that. "What did they steal?" she faltered, with her conversation with Perkins fresh in her mind.

"Everything, my dear," said Lutie, who did everything by extremes, and who wore the highest pompadour, and the highest heels, and who had the smallest waist and the largest hat that Anne had ever seen, and who always used the superlative when telling a tale.

"They stole every single thing down to the very shoes, and the kitten from the rug."

"Oh," said Anne, thinking of Belinda, "the dear little kitten. What did they want with it?"

"It was a Persian, and this morning it came back, but the silver collar was gone from its neck, and they took even a thimble from a work-basket, and a box of candy and a cake!"

"Did they get anything valuable?" asked Anne.

"All of Mrs. Durant's diamonds and the family silver," said Lutie. "My dear, Mrs. Durant is ill, absolutely ill, and the worst of it is that she saw the burglar, and it frightened her so that she hasn't gotten over it yet."

"How dreadful," said little Anne, thinking of the great sideboard and all of the Jameson silver that she and Perkins had cleaned. "Oh, Judy, suppose they should come here!"

But Judy was standing by the window, watching a figure that slipped from the boat-house to the wharf with a bundle on his shoulder, the figure of a small boy, with his cap pulled low.

"Such things are like lightning; they never strike twice in the same place," she said, indifferently. "Don't go, Lutie."

"Oh, I must," gushed Lutie. "I was just dying to see you, Anne, for a minute, so I came with Judy. But I must go. They will think I am dead."

But she stopped to ask a giggling question. "Tell me about Launcelot Bart, Anne," she begged. "Judy happened to mention him, but she wouldn't tell me a thing. I think they must have an awful case, for she is too quiet about him for anything. Is he nice?"

"He is the nicest boy I know," said Anne, enthusiastically.

"Oh, oh," gurgled silly Lutie, shaking her finger at the two girls as they stood together on the top step of the porch. "Don't get jealous of each other, you two."

"Jealous?" asked Anne's innocent eyes.

"Jealous?" blazed Judy's indignant eyes.

"Don't be a goose, Lutie." Judy was trying to control her temper. "Anne and I aren't grown up yet, and I hope we never will grow up and be horrid and self-conscious. Launcelot is our friend, and I didn't talk about him because I had plenty of other subjects."

"Oh," murmured Lutie, subdued for the moment; but she recovered as she went down the walk. "Oh, good-bye," she gushed; "let me know when it is to be, and I will dance at your wedding."

"Anne," said Judy, darkly, as the high heels tilted down the beach, and the feathers of the big hat fluttered in the breeze, "Anne, she hasn't talked a thing to-day but boys—and she reads the silliest books and writes the silliest poetry, about flaming hearts and Cupid's darts. Oh," and Judy stretched out her arms in a tense movement, "I don't want to grow up—I want to stay a little girl as long as I can and not think about lovers or getting married, or—or—anything—"

"You are lover enough for me," said Anne.

"And you for me," said Judy.

And arm in arm they went into the house. But as they went through the darkening hall, Anne clung tightly to Judy.

"Wouldn't it be dreadful, Judy, if burglars should come here," she quavered.

But Judy laughed. "I think it would be fun," she jested. "Bring on your burglars, Anne. I'm dying for excitement, as Lutie Barton would say." And then she touched a button, and the lights flared up, chasing away the shadows, and chasing away with them, for the moment, the fears of little Anne.



CHAPTER XX

ANNE HEARS A BURGLAR

Anne was wakened that night by a sense of utter loneliness.

"Judy," she called, softly.

No answer.

"Judy."

Anne reached over and found that the covers of the little white bed that stood beside her own had not been disturbed.

"She hasn't come up-stairs," thought Anne, who had left Judy reading in the library when she went to bed.

There was no light in the room, and as little Anne lay there, trembling and listening, her breath came quickly, for she was a timid little soul, and the talk of burglars that day had upset her; and without the wind howled, and within the house was very, very still.

At last she heard a sound. "She's coming," she thought, thankfully, but all at once she became conscious that the sound was not in the upper hall, but down-stairs on the porch.

There was the quick patter of little feet, and then an appealing whine.

"Why, it's a dog," said Anne, sitting up straight, "It's a dog."

She got up and looked out of the window. A little short-eared, stubby-tailed Boston terrier was running back and forth on the sand, anxiously.

Anne was a tender-hearted lover of animals, and his apparent distress appealed to her.

"I'll go down and see what's the matter with him," she decided, thrusting her feet into her slippers and tying the ribbons of her pink dressing-gown.

She flew down the long dark hall to the top of the steps that led below, and there she stopped still, with her hand on her heart.

The fire in the hall was still burning, and the flames wavered fitfully over the great picture above the mantel, and on the jar of red roses in front of it. The rest of the hall was in the shadow, and darker than the shadows, Anne had made out the figure of a man standing on the threshold.

As she gazed, he crossed the room and stood in front of the fire, his eyes raised to the great picture. Suddenly he leaned forward and took one of the red roses from the jar.

"He is even stealing the roses," thought Anne, indignantly, but then, what could you expect of a man who would carry off boxes of candy and thimbles and kittens?

She was sure it was the Durant burglar, and she dropped to the floor cautiously, and crouched there. Outside she could still hear the whine of the dog, but she had no thought of going to him now—she could not pass that silent figure on the rug.

Then, all at once, she thought of Judy. She was in the library, and there was just one room between her and the burglar!

Anne wasn't brave, and never had been, but in that moment she forgot herself, forgot everything but that Judy was not well and must not be frightened at any cost. Judy must not see the burglar.

As the man moved across the hall Anne staggered to her feet, feeling along the wall for the electric button, and then suddenly the lights flared up, and the little girl, a desperate pink figure clinging to the stair-rail, looked down into the upraised face of the man below.

"Don't," she said, with white lips, "don't—go—in—there—"

As she stared at him in a blur of fright she was conscious of wondering if all burglars looked so gentlemanly—if—why, where had she seen his face?

"Judy," breathed the man, and his whisper seemed to thunder in her ears as he came up the stairway two steps at a time.

Anne gave a little scream, half fright, half delight.

"Oh—" Why, his face was familiar—it was the face of the man in the picture over the fireplace!

"Judy," he said, again, as he reached her and caught her in his arms. But as her yellow hair flowed over his coat, he laughed excitedly and put her from him. "I beg pardon," he apologized. "I thought you were Judy."

"And I thought you were a burglar," quavered Anne, as she sat down on the top step weakly.

Her fair little face was alight with joy as she held out her hand. "Oh," she said, "you are Judy's father, and you are alive, you are really alive!"

"And you are Anne," said the Captain.

"How did you know?" wondering.

"The Judge told me."

"Where did you see the Judge?" she asked.

"He has been with me ever since he left here," said the Captain. "Dr. Grennell discovered me in a hospital in Newfoundland, and I was very ill, and he sent for father, and he has been with me ever since. And he has gone straight to Fairfax, for he isn't very well. But I had to see my girl. Did I wake you?"

"I heard the dog."

"Terry? I brought him to Judy, and left him outside so he wouldn't startle the house. Where is my girl—where is she, Anne?"

"Oh, she's in the library," said Anne. "I'll call her. Oh, how happy she will be! How happy she will be!" She sang it like a little song, as she flitted through the hall.

At the same moment the electric bell of the front door thrilled through the house, and the Captain opened the door quickly.

Preceded by a blast of wind, and the scurrying Terry-dog, Launcelot Bart came in. He stood irresolute as he saw the strange man on the rug, and before either could speak, Anne came running back.

Her face was white and her hands were shaking. She did not seem to see Launcelot, but went straight up to Captain Jameson.

"Oh, where is Judy, where is Judy?" she wailed, "she isn't there."

"And where is Tommy Tolliver?" demanded Launcelot Bart.



CHAPTER XXI

CAPTAIN JUDY

"Gee, Judy, but you can sail a boat."

Judy with the salt breeze blowing her hair back from her face, with her hand on the tiller, and with her eager eyes sweeping the surface of the moonlighted waters, smiled a little.

"I ought to," she declared, "father taught me. He said that he didn't have a son, so he intended that I should know as much as a boy about such things."

"It's mighty windy weather." Tommy was hunched up in the bottom of the boat—and his face had the woebegone look of the inexperienced sailor.

"It's going to be windier," said Judy, wisely, "it's coming now. Look at those clouds."

Back of the moon a heavy bank of clouds was crested with white, and the waters of the bay heaved sullenly.

Tommy, ignorant little landlubber that he was, began to wish that he had stayed at home, but Judy was exalted, uplifted by the thought of a coming battle with wind and waves. She had fought them so often in the little white boat, but one thing she forgot, that she was not as strong as she had been, and that Tommy was not as helpful as her father.

The start had been very exciting. Judy had pretended to read in the library, and little Anne had gone to bed, and then when the house was still she had crept out, and had met Tommy, and together they had gotten "The Princess" under sail.

But more than once that day Judy's heart had failed her. The Cause had looked rather silly on second thoughts, and Tommy was so commonplace—but, oh, well, she had promised, and that was the end of it.

Tommy was dreadfully awkward about a boat, too. In spite of his eagerness for a life on the ocean wave, he had never had any practical training and Judy grew impatient more than once at the slow way in which he followed out her orders.

"I would do it myself," she scolded finally, "only I must save my strength for the trip back. I shall be all alone then, you know."

Tommy sat down suddenly. "Gracious," he gasped, "I never thought of that. Oh, we will have to go back. You can't take this boat home alone, Judy."

Judy's head went up. "I am captain of this ship, Tommy Tolliver," she declared, "and I am going to sail into port and put you ashore. Then I shall do as I like."

"Aw—" said Tommy, appalled at this display of nautical knowledge, "aw—all right, Captain Judy."

The wind came as Judy had said it would, filling the little sail until it looked like a white flower, and carrying "The Princess" along at a pace that made Tommy feel weak and faint.

"Isn't it fine," cried Judy, leaning forward, and drinking in the strong air with delight. "Isn't it glorious, Tommy?"

"Yes," said Tommy, doubtfully. He was pale, and presently he lay down in the bottom of the boat.

"Suck a lemon," suggested Judy, practically, "there are some in that little locker," and after following her advice, Tommy recovered sufficiently to sit up, and in the lulls of the gale he and Judy shrieked at each other, and sang songs of the sea.

They ate a little lunch, intermittently—a bite of sandwich while Tommy pulled at the ropes or adjusted the sail, or a wing of chicken as Judy swung the boat with her head to the wind. It was all very exciting and Judy forgot care and the worried hearts that she had left behind, and Tommy, reckless in a new-found courage, felt that he was a true sailor and a son of the sea.

But as the night wore on, and the wind settled into a steady blow, it took all Judy's science and Tommy's strength to keep the little boat in her course. The waves ran higher and higher, and Judy grew quiet, and her face was pale with fatigue.

Tommy began to have doubts. A life on the ocean wave wasn't all that it was cracked up to be, and anyhow, Judy was only a girl!

"How long before we get there," he shouted amid the tumult.

"We ought to reach the Point in a little while," said Judy, "but—but I am not quite sure where we are, Tommy. I have always kept within sight of land before—"

There was no land to be seen now. The moon was hidden by the clouds, and on each side of them black water stretched out to meet black sky, broken only by leaping lengths of white foam.

But they were not fated to reach the Point that night, for the wind changed, and in spite of all efforts to keep on their way, the little boat was blown farther and farther out into the great, wide waters of the bay.

"Is there any danger?" questioned Tommy as the foam boiled up on each side of the boat, drenching both himself and Judy, whose face, white as a pearl, showed through the gloom.

But Judy did not answer at once. She waited until she could make herself heard in a lull of the wind, and then she admitted, "We shall have to stay out all night, I am afraid."

"All night," gasped Tommy. "Oh, Judy, ain't it awful."

"No," said Judy, calmly, "not if we are not silly and afraid."

"Oh, I'm not afraid," swaggered Tommy, "only I wish we hadn't come," he ended, weakly, as the boat swooped down into the trough of a wave, and then rose high in the air.

"You should have told me it wasn't safe," he complained presently, "you knew it was going to storm, didn't you?"

"Well, I like that—" Judy stared at him. "Oh, try to be a man, Tommy, if you are a coward."

Tommy winced. "I'm not afraid," he defended.

"Perhaps not," said Judy, slowly, "but—but—if you had been a man you would have said, 'I am sorry I asked you to bring me, Judy.'"

"But—"

"Oh, we won't argue." Judy raised her voice as another blast came. "I—I'm too tired to—to argue—Tommy—"

She swayed back and forth, holding on to the tiller weakly.

"I—I am so—tired," she tried to laugh, but her face was ghastly. "I—I guess I wasn't very nice just now, Tommy,—but I—am—so tired. You will have to steer, Tommy."

"But I don't know how," blubbered Tommy.

"You will just have to do it. I can't sit up—" and Judy tumbled down into the bottom of the boat, completely worn out from the unaccustomed strain.

Tommy whimpered in a frightened monotone as he grasped the tiller with inexperienced hands. What if Judy were dead? What—? "I'll never do it again. I'll never run awa—" but Judy did not hear, for she lay with her eyes shut in a sort of stupor in the bottom of the boat.

She was waked by a bump and the wash of the waves over the boat.

"We've struck somewhere, Tommy," she shrieked.

"Oh, oh," howled Tommy, "we'll drown, Judy!"

"We won't," she said, tensely. "Hush, Tommy. Hush—do you hear? Can you swim?"

"No," and he clutched hold of her as another wave broke over the boat.

"There's a life-belt here somewhere," and Andy threw things out in frantic haste. "Here. Take hold of it, Tommy."

"But—what are you going to do?"

"I can swim. Don't mind about me, and if you keep quiet I will tow you in if we are near land."

She said it quietly, but in her heart she wondered where she would tow him.

"Don't take hold of me," she insisted, peremptorily, as she felt Tommy grab her arm, "or we shall both go under—oh—"

In that moment the boat keeled over, and when Judy came to the top of the water, she knew that between her and death in the green depths beneath, there was nothing but the strength of her frail limbs.

"Tommy," she called, as soon as she could get the salt water out of her mouth.

"Here," came shiveringly over the face of the waters.

"Are you all right?"

"No, no, it's horrid. Oh, I wish I was home—I wish I was home"—wailed Tommy, clinging to the belt for dear life.

The clouds had parted and one little star showed in the blackness, in the dim light Judy could just see Tommy's eyes glowing from out of his pallid face.

"He is afraid," she thought to herself, curiously. She was not afraid. She had never been afraid of the water—poor Tommy.

She felt strangely weak, however, and all at once there came to her the knowledge that she could not keep up any longer. The strength of the old days was not hers—and she was tired—so tired—

She caught hold of the life-belt, and as she did so Tommy screamed, "Don't, Judy. It won't hold us both. Don't—"

"He is afraid," she thought again, pityingly, "and I am not, and we can't both hold on to that belt—"

Tommy babbled crazily, bemoaning his danger, sobbing now and then—but Judy was very still.

"I can't keep up much longer. I mustn't try to hold on with Tommy. He is afraid—poor Tommy—" she looked up at the little star, "and I'm not afraid—I love the sea," she thought, dreamily. Then for one moment she came out of her trance.

"Tommy, Tommy!" she cried sharply.

"What?"

"Don't let go of the belt. Hold on, no matter how tired you are. In the morning—some one—will save you—"

"But you—wh-wh-at are you going to do, Judy?"

"Oh, I—?" she laughed faintly. "Oh, I shall be all right—all right, Tommy," and her voice died away in an awful silence.



CHAPTER XXII

THE CASTAWAYS

"Judy—" shrieked Tommy, and suddenly the answer came in a choking cry of joy.

"I can touch bottom, Tommy, I thought I was sinking, but it isn't over our heads at all. We must be near shore."

Tommy put his feet down gingerly. He had hated to think of the untold fathoms beneath him—depths which in his imagination were strewn with shipwrecks and the bones of lost mariners.

So when his feet came in contact with good firm sand, he giggled hysterically.

"Gee, but it feels good," he said. "Are you all right, Judy?"

But Judy had waded in and dropped exhausted on the beach.

"I don't know," she said, feebly, "I guess so."

"Where are we?" asked Tommy, splashing his way to her side.

He surveyed the land around them. In the moonlight it showed nothing but wide beach and back of that stiff rustling sea-grass and mounds of sand like the graves of sailors dead and gone. Not a house was in sight—not a sign of life.

"I don't know where we are," Judy raised her head for a second, then dropped it back, "but we are safe, Tommy Tolliver, and that's something to be thankful for.

"I knew the sea wouldn't hurt me," she went on—a little wildly, perhaps, which was excusable after the danger she had escaped. "I knew it wouldn't hurt me."

"Oh, the sea," whined Tommy, disgustedly, "this isn't the ocean, and if just an old bay can act like this, why, I say give me land. No more water for me, thank you. I am going home and plow—yes, I am, I am going to plow, Judy Jameson, and take care of the cows—and—and weed the garden," naming the thing he hated most as a climax, "and when I get to thinking things are hard, I will remember this night—when I was a shipwrecked mariner."

In imagination he was revelling in the story he would tell at home. Of the adventures that he would relate to the eager ears of the youth of Fairfax. "Yes, indeed, I will remember the time when I was a shipwrecked mariner," he said with gusto, "and lived on a desert island."

"Oh, Tommy," in spite of faintness and hunger and exhaustion, Judy laughed. "Oh, Tommy, you funny boy—this isn't a desert island."

"How do you know it isn't?" asked Tommy, stubbornly.

"There aren't any desert islands in the bay."

"I'll bet this is one."

"I hope not."

"Why?"

"We haven't anything to eat."

"Oh, well, we will find things in the morning."

"Where?"

"On the trees. Fruit and things."

"But there aren't any trees."

"Oh, well, oysters then."

"How will you get them—"

"And fish," ignoring difficulties.

"We haven't any lines or hooks."

"And things from the wreck."

"The boat tipped over," said Judy, with a little sobbing sigh for the capsized "Princess," "and anyhow there was nothing left to eat but some lemons and a box of crackers."

"Don't be so discouraging," grumbled Tommy, "you know people always find something."

They sat in silence for a time, and then Judy said:

"I hope they are not worrying at home."

"Gee—they will be scared, when they wake up in the morning and find you gone," said Tommy, consolingly.

"I left a note for Anne in the library, telling her where I had gone—but I thought I would get back before she found it," said Judy—"poor little Anne."

"I think it is poor Tommy and poor Judy," said the cause of all the trouble.

"But we deserve it and Anne doesn't. And that's the difference," said Judy, wisely.

"Aw—don't preach."

"Couldn't if I tried," and Judy clasped her hands around her knees and gazed out on the dark waters, and again there was a long silence.

"Well, what are we going to do?" demanded Tommy as the night wind blew cold against his wet garments and made him shiver.

"Do?"

"Yes. We can't sit like this all night."

"Guess we shall have to."

Another silence.

"Gee, I'm hungry."

"So am I."

"But there isn't anything to eat."

"No."

Silence again.

"Gee—I'm sleepy."

"Find some place out of the wind and go to sleep. I'll watch."

"All night?"

"Perhaps. You go to sleep, Tommy."

"Won't you be lonesome?"

Judy smiled wearily. "No," she said, "you go to sleep, Tommy."

And Tommy went.

But it was not until the cold light of dawn touched the face of the waters, that the sentinel-like figure on the beach relaxed from its strained position, and then the dark head dropped, and with a sigh Judy stretched her slender body on the hard sand, and she, too, slept.



CHAPTER XXIII

IN A SILVER BOAT

The tide coming in the next morning brought with it on the blue surface of the waves two bobbing lemons. Many times the golden globes rolled up the beach only to be carried back by the under-wash of the waters, but finally one wave rolling farther than the rest left them high and dry on the sand, and the same wave splashing over an inert and huddled up figure waked it to consciousness.

Judy sat up stiffly and stared around her. "Oh," she sighed, as she remembered all that had happened in the darkness of the night.

She clasped her hands around her knees and gazed out forlornly over the empty waters. Not a sail, not a trail of smoke broke the blueness of the bay. With another sigh, this time of disappointment, she turned her gaze landward, and beheld there nothing but lank marsh grass and sand and driftwood.

And then at her feet she spied the lemons. She picked them up—they were the only salvage from the sunken boat. She looked around for Tommy. On the other side of a mound of sand, she could just see the top of his head, and as he did not move she decided that he was still asleep.

Her eyes twinkled, as with stealthy steps she crept up the beach until she reached a low bush with scrubby sage-green foliage. On its spiky branches she stuck the lemons, and then ran swiftly back.

Tommy was still sleeping, so she dipped her hands into the cold water, took off her stiffened shoes and bathed her swollen feet. Her dress had dried in the night winds, and when she had combed her hair she looked fairly presentable.

Barefooted she tripped over the cool wet sands, glorying in the broad expanse of blue, with white gulls dipping to it from a bluer sky.

"Tommy," she called, "Tommy."

A towsled head appeared over the top of the mound.

"Oh, dear," said Tommy, lugubriously, as he saw her sparkling face, "you act as if being shipwrecked was a good joke, Judy."

"The sun is shining and it is perfectly fine."

"It's perfectly horrid," said Tommy.

Judy looked at him for a moment, and a lump came in her throat.

"Well, it seems so much better to laugh over our troubles than to cry. Don't you think so, Tommy?" she said, wistfully, and tears welled up into her brave eyes.

"Oh, don't cry, Judy," begged Tommy, who felt that all the world would grow dark if Judy's staunch heart should fail. "Don't cry, Judy." She brushed away her tears and smiled at him. "Well, get up, lazy boy," she said.

"I'm hungry."

"Well, go and hunt for something to eat."

"Don't know where to look."

"Neither did Robinson Crusoe."

"Oh, well, what are you going to do?"

"Watch for some one to come and take us off."

It began to be exciting. If Tommy had not been so hungry, he really believed that he might have appreciated the adventure. But his soul yearned for hot cakes and maple syrup, or beefsteak and waffles—or at least for plain bread and butter.

"Gee, but it would taste good," he said aloud.

"What?"

"I was thinking of breakfast," said poor Tommy, "hot rolls and things like that, Judy."

"O-o-oh," said Judy, "how about some hot biscuit, with one of Perkins' omelettes—and—creamed potatoes?"

"Oh, don't," groaned hungry Tommy, and fled.

He came back in about two minutes, swaggering with importance.

"This island isn't so barren as it looks," he said, pompously. "You don't know everything, Judy."

"Don't I?"

"No. Now what do you think of these," and he produced the two lemons triumphantly.

"Where did you find them?"

"Growing over there," and he pointed to the scrubby, sage-green spiky bush.

"Who would have believed it?" Judy's eyes were round and solemn, but the expression in them should have warned Tommy.

"You see there are some things you don't know. I'm going to look for oysters now."

"Oysters—"

"Yes. To eat with our lemons."

"You might find some cracker fruit, and a coffee vine, and maybe there will be a salt and pepper tree somewhere—and Tommy, please discover a Tabasco bush—I never could eat my oysters without Tabasco."

Tommy looked at her wrathfully. "Aw, Judy," he said, with a red face, "you're foolin'—and I think it's mean."

Then a thought struck him, and he examined the lemons carefully.

"You stuck them on that bush," he accused, excitedly. "There are holes in them. You did it to fool me, didn't you, Judy?"

She nodded.

"An' you think it's a joke—I—I—" He could think of nothing sufficiently crushing to say. "Well, I don't," he finished sulkily, and plumped himself down on the sand, with his face away from her.

"Tommy," she said, after a long silence, "Tommy."

"Huh?"

"Please be good-natured."

"Be good-natured yourself," said Tommy, with a half-sob. "I'm—I'm—perfectly mis'able, Judy Jameson—"

It was then that Judy showed that she could be womanly and sympathetic. "I'm sorry I teased you, Tommy," she said, softly. "Let's make ourselves comfortable here on the sand, and I'll tell you about when I used to live in Europe."

Tommy liked that, and all the morning Judy talked, although she was so tired, that her head felt light, and her eyes blurred, but Tommy was happy and she tried to forget about herself.

She made him suck both of the lemons.

"I don't want any," she said, although her throat was so dry that she could hardly speak. "I don't want any."

"Whew, but they are sour," said Tommy, and made a wry face, but he did not insist upon her having one.

That was the worst of it, the thirst, for there was no fresh water.

"Let's explore," said Tommy, as the afternoon waned and no relief came. "Maybe we will find a house back there somewhere."

But Judy shook her head. "No," she said, "we are on the end of the peninsula, between the bay and the ocean. It is just salt marshes from one end to the other, and no one lives on them. The best thing we can do is to hail a boat."

"But there ain't any boats."

"There will be," said Judy, stoutly. "There are lots of little schooners that take fruit and vegetables to the markets. Not many of them come this way, but some of them do, and if we wait they will rescue us."

After that they saw several sails, and waved Tommy's coat frantically, but no one responded. As the twilight darkened into the night, a steamer went by, her lights shining like jewels against the purple background—red and green and yellow.

"If we only had a lantern," groaned Judy, as Tommy shouted himself hoarse, and the steamer kept on her majestic way, leaving them hopelessly behind.

"Maybe some one will see us in the morning." Judy was trying to encourage Tommy, who had dropped down on the sand with his back to her, but not before she had seen his working face, and his knuckles rubbing his red eyes.

"I'm going to sleep," he muttered, still with his face away from her, and with that he curled himself up against the big mound, as he had done the night before, and forgot his troubles.

Judy lay on the sand watching the waves roll in, and thinking long thoughts. She thought of her father, living, perhaps, on some such lonely beach as this, but farther away from the haunts of men—alone, looking at the same stars, searching a vaster expanse for the ship that never came. She thought, too, of her mother, the gentle mother, whose guarding presence she seemed to feel in the wonderful stillness. She thought of their plans for her; that she might grow to gracious womanhood, following in the footsteps of the women of her race, and here she was—a runaway, reckless little girl, away from home at midnight, chaperoned only by the wind and the waves, and with no roof above her but the sky!

Under the solemn canopy of the night she made many resolves, cried a little, and lay there with her eyes shut, but not asleep, feeling very wicked, and very forlorn, and very, very hopeless.

When she opened her eyes again, the night was glorious. The moon had risen, and its light made a silver pathway across the darkness of the waters, and sailing straight towards her, its sails set to the fair winds of heaven, came a little boat, dark against the shining background.

Some one stood in the bow, straight and strong and young, and as Judy watched in a half-dream, she remembered an opera she had seen once upon a time; where a knight in silver armor had come on the back of a silver swan to the lady he loved. She had hoped, mistily, that when she was old enough for such things, that Love might come to her like that—over the sea in silver armor, and sail away with her in a silver boat to the end of the world!

The boat came nearer, the boat with the silver sails! She stood up to watch, and as her slim figure was etched sharply against the background of white sand, there came to her upon the wings of the night the cry—

"Judy!"

Her hand went to her heart. Was it real? Where did he come from, that youth in the silver boat. But even as she wondered, the cry went back to him, an answering cry, joyous, welcoming—

"Launcelot, oh, Launcelot."



CHAPTER XXIV

"HOME IS THE SAILOR FROM THE SEA"

Judy's cry did not wake Tommy, and still in a half-dream she went down to the edge of the water and stood ghost-like in the moonlight, waiting. There was another figure in the boat, half-hidden by the shadowy sails, but it was Launcelot who, when the shallow water was reached, jumped out and waded to shore.

"Judy, Judy," he said, as he came up to her, "I knew I should find you."

She looked at him with wide eyes. "Where—where did you come from," she whispered, while her white hands fluttered across his coat sleeve as if to see that he was real.

There was sympathy and tenderness in his boyish face, but seeing her condition, he spoke cheerfully. "I came down to The Breakers after Tommy. His mother was ill, and his father had to stay with her, so they sent me. And when I got there I found Anne and—and—" he checked himself hurriedly, "I found Anne almost frantic because you had gone, and then when she found your note I started out, for I knew I should find you, Judy. I knew I should sail straight to you."

For one little moment as they stood together in the moonlight, he looked down at her with the eyes of the lover he was to be, but as yet they were only boy and girl and the moment passed.

"Where's Tommy?" asked Launcelot, coming out of his dream.

He was answered by a shout as Tommy came plunging over the sand.

"Why didn't you wake me, Judy?" he complained, bitterly, "when you first saw the boat."

"Stop that," commanded Launcelot. "Why weren't you keeping watch? What kind of sailor do you call yourself, Tommy?"

"Oh, well," Tommy excused, "I was sleepy."

"And so you let a girl watch," was Launcelot's hard way of putting it, and Tommy's eyes shifted.

"Oh, well," he began again.

"I made him let me watch, Launcelot," Judy interrupted, feeling sorry for the small boy, "and I told him to go to sleep."

"Oh, of course you did," said Launcelot, shortly, "and of course he went, he's a nice sort of sailor."

"I'm not going to be a sailor," Tommy announced, sulkily. "I'm going home—"

"Right-o," agreed Lancelot, "and the quicker the better."

"Miss Judy," came a sepulchral voice from the boat, "Miss Judy, we thought you were drownded."

"Oh, Perkins," cried Judy, "is that you, Perkins?"

"What's left of me, Miss," and Perkins' bald head came into view as he stood up in the boat.

Judy and Tommy climbed in, amid excited questions and explanations, which presently settled into a continuous monotone of complaint from Tommy. "I'm half-starved. Haven't you anything to eat, Perkins?"

Now Tommy grated on Perkins' nerves. The old butler had always been treated by the Jamesons with the gentle consideration due his age and long and faithful service, in the light of which Tommy's dictation seemed nothing less than impertinent.

And so it came about that Judy was served with good things first, while Tommy was made to wait.

"Oh, Perkins, can't you hurry," growled the small rude boy.

And then Judy turned on him. "You may be hungry, Tommy," she blazed, "but don't speak to Perkins that way again."

"Oh, Miss," deprecated Perkins, although in his old heart he was glad of her defense.

"Perkins has been out all night hunting for us," Judy's voice quivered, "and—and—he is just as tired as we are, Tommy Tolliver."

But Tommy had his sandwich, and blissfully munching it, cared little for Judy's reproof. After he had finished he went to sleep comfortably in the bottom of the boat, his troubles forgotten.

There was about Launcelot and Perkins an air of subdued excitement that finally attracted Judy's attention.

"What's the matter with you all?" she asked, curiously, as she looked up suddenly from her pile of comfortable cushions, and caught Perkins smiling at Launcelot over her head.

"Oh, nothing, Miss, nothing at all," coughed Perkins.

"Has anything happened?"

Launcelot, who was steering, smiled down at her.

"Miss Curiosity," he teased.

"I'm not curious. I just want to know."

"Oh, well, that's one way to put it."

"Tell me. Has anything happened?"

"Yes."

"What?"

"Something splendid."

Judy sat up. "Tell me," she begged.

But Launcelot was inflexible. "Not now," and Judy sank back with a sigh, for she was getting to know that when the big boy said a thing he meant it.

"When will I know?" she asked after a while.

"When you get to The Breakers."

"Oh."

She was silent for a little, then she said:

"I know you think it was awful for me to run away with Tommy—"

"It would have been better if you had sent him home."

"But I wanted to help him—he has such a hard time."

"He would have a harder time if he went to sea, Judy. He isn't like you, he doesn't like the sea for its own sake. He has read a lot of stuff about sailors and adventures, and his head is full of it. He isn't the kind that makes a brave man."

"I know that," said Judy, for the little voyage had proved Tommy and had found him wanting.

"He ought to stay at home and fight things out," said Launcelot, "as the rest of us have to."

Judy looked up at him, surprised. "Are you fighting things out?" she asked.

"Oh, yes. I want to go to college, and I can't and that's the end of it," and Launcelot's lips were set in a stern line.

"Why not?"

"Father's too sick for me to leave—I've got to run the farm," was Launcelot's simple statement of the bitter fact.

"I am always trying to do great things," mourned Judy, with a sigh for the Cause of Thomas the Downtrodden, from which the romance seemed to have fled, "but they just fizzle out."

"Don't be discouraged. You'll learn to look before you leap yet, Judy," and Launcelot laughed, his own troubles forgotten in his interest in hers.

"What are you going to take up for a life work?" asked Judy, remembering Ruskin.

"I am going to be a lawyer," announced Launcelot, promptly, "and a good one like the Judge. My grandfather was a Judge, too, but father chose business, and failed because he wasn't fitted for it, and that's why we are on the farm, now."

"I'm going to be an artist," announced Judy, toploftically, "and paint wonderful pictures."

But Launcelot looked at her doubtfully. "I'll bet you won't," he said with decision. "I'll bet you won't paint pictures and be an artist."

"Why not?"

"Because you'll get married, and—"

Judy shrugged an impatient shoulder. "I am never going to marry," she declared.

"Why not?"

"Because I want my own way," said wilful Judy.

"Oh," said "bossy" Launcelot.

The waves were twinkling in the gold of the morning sun when the tired party sighted the beach below The Breakers.

Judy standing up in the boat with her dark hair blowing around her spied a little waiting group.

"There's Anne—dear Anne—and, why, Launcelot, there's a dog."

"Is there?"

"Yes, and—and—a man—"

"Yes." Launcelot's voice was calm, but his hand on the tiller trembled.

She turned on him her startled eyes. "Do you know who it is?" she demanded.

"Yes."

"Who?"

"Look and see."

The man on the beach was gazing straight out across the bay, and in the clearness of the morning air, Judy made out his features, the pale dark face, the waving hair.

She clutched Launcelot's arm. "Who is it?" she demanded, looking as if she had seen a spirit. "Who is it, Launcelot?"

And then Launcelot gave a shout that woke Tommy.

"It's, oh, who do you think it is, Judy Jameson?"

And Judy whispered with a white face, "It looks like—my father. Is it really—my father—Launcelot?" and Launcelot let the tiller go, and caught hold of her hands, and said: "It really is, it really and truly is, Judy Jameson."

Judy never knew how the boat reached the wharf, nor how she came to be in her father's arms. But she knew that she should never be happier this side of heaven than she was when he held her close and murmured in her ear, "My own daughter, my own dear little girl."

It was an excited group that circled around them—Perkins and Launcelot, and the dog, Terry, and last but not least, Anne, red-eyed and dishevelled.

"Oh, Judy, Judy," she sobbed, when at last Judy came down to earth and beamed on her. "We thought you were drowned, and I have cried all night."

And at that Judy cried, too, and they sat down on the sand and had a little weep together, comfortably, as girls will, when the danger is over and every one is safe and happy.

"I'm all right," gasped Judy at last, mopping her eyes with a clean handkerchief, offered her by the ever-useful Perkins. "I'm all right—but—but—Anne was such a goosie,—and I am so happy—" And with that she dropped her head on Anne's shoulder again and cried harder than ever.

"Dear heart, don't cry," begged the Captain.

"She is tired to death," explained Launcelot.

"She needs her breakfast, sir," suggested Perkins.

"So do I," grumbled Tommy Tolliver, who stood in the background feeling very much left out.

But even as they spoke, Judy slipped into her father's arms again, and lay there quietly, as she murmured, so that no one else heard:

"'Home is the sailor from the sea'—oh, father, father, I knew you would come back to me—I knew you would come back some day."



CHAPTER XXV

LAUNCELOT BUYS A COW

Never had Fairfax seen so many interesting arrivals as during that second week in August.

On Monday came Dr. Grennell, mysterious and smiling; on Tuesday, Judge Jameson, pale but radiant; on Wednesday, Tommy and Launcelot, bursting with important news; on Thursday, Captain Jameson, with a joyful dark maiden on one side of him, and a joyful fair maiden on the other; on Friday, Perkins, beaming with the baggage, and on Saturday, the Terry-dog, resignedly, in a crate.

And every one, except Terry, the dog, had a story to tell, and the story was one that was to become a classic in the annals of Fairfax. How Captain Jameson had been washed overboard in southern seas, how he had been rescued by natives and had lived among them; how he had been found by a party searching for gold; how he had started with them for home, had become ill as soon as they put to sea, and because of his illness had been the only one left when the ship caught on fire; how the fire had gone out, and he had floated on the deserted vessel until picked up by a fishing-boat, and how he had been brought to Newfoundland and how Dr. Grennell had discovered him by means of the Spanish coins.

But in the eyes of the children of Fairfax his adventures paled before those of Tommy Tolliver. To a gaping audience that small boy talked of the things he had done—of shipwrecks, of desert islands, of hunger and thirst until the little girls gazed at him with tears in their eyes, although the effect was somewhat spoiled by Jimmie Jones' artless remark, "But you were only away four days, Tommy!"

All Fairfax rejoiced with the Judge and Judy, but only little Anne knew what Judy really felt, for in the first moment that they were alone together after that eventful morning at The Breakers, Judy, with her eyes shining like stars, had thrown her arms around the neck of her fair little friend, and had whispered, "Oh, Anne, Anne, I don't deserve such happiness, but I am so thankful that I feel as if I should be good for the rest of my life."

And no one but Anne knew why Judy put everything aside to be with her father, to anticipate every desire of his, to cheer every solitary minute.

"I must try to take mother's place," she confided to her sympathetic listener in the watches of the night. "He misses her so—Anne."

Anne went back to the little gray house, where the plums were purple on the tree in the orchard, and where Becky on her lookout limb was hidden by the thickness of the foliage. The robins were gone, and so was Belinda's occupation, but she had more important things on hand, and after the first joy of greetings, the little grandmother led Anne to a cozy corner of the little kitchen, where in a big basket, Belinda sang lullabies to four happy, sleepy balls of down as white as herself.

"Oh, the dear little pussy cats," gurgled Anne, as Belinda welcomed her with a gratified "Purr-up," "what does Becky think of them, grandmother?"

"She takes care of them when Belinda goes out," said the little grandmother. "It's too funny to see them cuddle under her black wings."

"I wonder if she will make friends with Terry, Judy's dog," chatted Anne, as she cuddled the precious kittens. "He's the dearest thing, and he took to Judy right away, and follows her around all the time."

The little grandmother sat down in an old rocker with a red cushion and took off her spectacles with trembling hands. "Belinda will have to get used to him, I guess," she said.

"Of course," said Anne, not looking up, "Judy will bring him here when she comes."

"I don't mean that," said the little grandmother.

Something in the old voice made Anne look up.

"What's the matter, little grandmother?" she asked, anxiously.

"I mean that we are going to leave the little gray house, Anne, you and I and Belinda and Becky," and with that the little grandmother put on her spectacles again, to see how Anne took the news.

Anne stared. "Leave the little gray house," she said, slowly. "Why what do you mean, grandmother?"

"We are going to live at the Judge's," and at that Anne's face changed from dismay to happiness, and she turned the kittens over to Belinda and flung her arms around the little old lady's neck.

"Oh, am I really going to live with Judy?" she shrieked joyfully, "and you and Becky and Belinda—oh, it's too good to be true."

"We really are," said Mrs. Batcheller. "The Judge and I had a long talk together, the day he came down, and he wants you to go away to school with Judy, and have me come and help Aunt Patterson to manage his house. He says she is too feeble for so much care and that it will be an accommodation to him."

But Mrs. Batcheller did not tell how the Judge had argued for hours to break down the barriers of pride which she had raised, and that he had finally won, because of his insistence that Anne must have the opportunities due one of her name and race.

"You are to go to Mrs. French's school in Richmond, with Judy. She is a gentlewoman, a Southerner, and an old friend of the Judge's and mine, and we think it will be exactly the place for you two for a time."

"It will be lovely," cried little Anne, as the plans for her future were unfolded, but late that evening when she was ready to say "good night" she stood for a moment with her cheek against her grandmother's soft old one.

"I shall miss you and the little gray house, grandmother," she whispered, "I was hungry for you at The Breakers, although it was lovely there, and every one was so kind."

"I shall miss you too, dear heart," said the little grandmother, but she did not say how much, for she wanted Anne to go away happily, and she felt that she must not be selfish.

It was wonderful the planning that went on after that. Anne spent many days at the big house in Fairfax, and each time she went it was a tenderer, dearer Judy that welcomed her.

"Father will stay with grandfather this winter. I begged to stay, too, but they both think the schools here are not what I need, and so I am to go away," she explained one morning as she and Anne were getting ready to go with a party of young people to pick goldenrod.

"Yes," said Anne, putting her red reefer over her white dress, and admiring the effect.

"I hate school," began Judy, sticking in a hat-pin viciously, then she stopped and laughed, "No, I don't, either. I don't hate anything since father came back."

"Not even cats?" asked Anne, demurely.

"No. You know I love Belinda."

"Nor picnics?"

"Not Fairfax ones."

"Nor books?"

"I just love 'em—thanks to you."

"Nor—nor boys—?" mischievously.

"Oh, do stop your questions," and Judy put her hands over her ears. But Anne persisted, "Nor boys, Judy?"

"I like Launcelot Bart—and—little Jimmie Jones, but I am not sure about Tommy Tolliver, Anne."

And then they both laughed light-heartedly, and tripped down-stairs to find Amelia and Nannie and Tommy waiting for them.

"Launcelot couldn't come," explained Tommy. "He had to go to Upper Fairfax, and he said he was awfully sorry, but he didn't dare to take so much time away from the farm."

"Poor fellow," sighed tender-hearted little Anne. "He is always so busy."

"I don't think he is to be pitied," said Judy, with a scornful glance at Tommy. "He has work to do and he does it, which is more than most people do."

There was gold in the sunshine, and gold in the changing leaves, and gold in the ripened grain in the fields, and gold in the goldenrod which they had come to pick.

Tommy gathered great armfuls of the feathery bloom, and the girls made it into bunches, while Terry, who had come with them, whuffed at the chipmunks on the gray fence-rails.

"What do you want it for?" asked Tommy, sitting down beside the busy maidens and wiping his warm forehead.

"To-morrow is Judy's birthday," said Anne, "and we are going to decorate the house."

"Oh, is it?" asked Amelia and Nannie together.

"Yes," said Judy, "and I want you to come to dinner and spend the evening with us. I am not going to have a party, because father isn't feeling as if he wanted to join in any gay things yet, but we can have a nice time together, and it may be the last before Anne and I go away to school."

"Go where?" gasped Nannie and Amelia and Tommy.

Judy explained. "We leave the first week in September," she ended.

"Oh, oh," cried the stricken three, "what shall we do. All winter—and we can't have any fun—if Anne isn't here, nor you, Judy, and we had planned so many things."

"Will you really miss me?" Judy asked a little wistfully, and at that Nannie's hand was laid on hers, as the little girl murmured, "We shall miss you awfly, Judy," while Amelia sighed a great, gusty sigh, as she said, "Oh, dear, now everything's spoiled!"

"Do you want me to come to your birthday dinner, too?" asked Tommy, anxiously, when the first shock of the coming separation was over, "or ain't you goin' to have any boys."

"Yes, I want you and Launcelot," said Judy, who had debated the question of being friendly with Tommy, for he hadn't seemed worth it, but Anne had pleaded for him. "He really means well, Judy," she had protested, "and I think he is going to turn over a new leaf."

"Well, I hope he will," said Judy, and forgave him.

When the big gate was reached, Nannie and Amelia and Tommy went on, and as Judy and Anne went into the old garden, they found the Judge and the Captain, both still semi-invalids, sitting there, amid a riot of late summer blossoms.

As he greeted them, Captain Jameson's eyes went from the rosy, fair face of little Anne to the pale but happy one of his daughter. "Father is right," he thought, "Anne does her good."

"Isn't it lovely here," said Judy, dropping her great golden bunch with a sigh as she sat down on the bench under the lilac bush. "It's so cool."

"What a lot of goldenrod," said the Judge. "Aren't you tired?"

"A little," said Judy, as she took off her hat.

"Launcelot couldn't go," Anne started to explain, when Terry, who had been investigating the hedge, barked.

"What's the matter with him?" asked Judy, as the small dog growled in what might be called a perfunctory fashion, for he was so good natured that he was in a chronic state of being at peace with the world.

She went to the gate and looked over.

"Why, it's a cow," she cried, "a beautiful little brown-eyed cow."

Terry barked again, and then a voice outside the hedge said: "Yes, and I've just bought her."

"Launcelot," screamed both of the girls, delightedly, and opened the gate wide.



CHAPTER XXVI

JUDY PLAYS LADY BOUNTIFUL

"Down, Terry," commanded the Captain, as the little dog went for the mild-eyed cow, but the mild-eyed cow seemed perfectly able to take care of herself, and as she lowered her horns, Terry retired discreetly to a safe place between the Captain's knees, where he wagged an ingratiating tail.

Launcelot and the cow stood framed in the rose-covered gateway.

"Yes, I've bought a cow," explained the big boy, who was dusty but cheerful, "and we are going to have our own butter and milk, and if there is any over, I'll sell it."

"You have my order now," said the Judge, handsomely.

"Thank you, sir," said Launcelot, and Anne cried:

"Oh, Launcelot, make it in little pats stamped with a violet, and label it, 'From the Violet Farm.'"

"That's not a bad idea," commended the Captain, "novelties like that take, and if the butter is good, you may get a market for more than you can make."

"Then I will get another cow and enlarge my hothouse, and between the butter and the violets I guess I can bring up my college fund," and Launcelot looked so hopeful that they all smiled in sympathy.

"Where did you get her?" asked Judy, as she patted the pretty creature on the head.

"I bought her a mile or so out in the country, and I tell you I hated to take her after I had paid the money."

"Why?" asked Anne.

"Oh, they were so poor, and the cow was the only thing they had. There is a widow, named McSwiggins, with six children, and I guess they have had a pretty hard time, and now their taxes are due and the interest and two of them have had the typhoid fever, and are just skin and bone, and they had to sell the cow, and they cried, and I felt like a thief when I carried her off."

"Oh, poor things," cried Judy, when Launcelot finished his breathless recital, "poor things."

"I didn't want to take her, after I found out, but Mrs. McSwiggins said that they needed the money awfully, and that I was doing them a favor—only it was hard, and then she cried and the children all cried, too."

"Why haven't they told some one before this?" asked the Judge, wiping his eyes.

"I guess the mother is too proud. They are from the South and they haven't been in this neighborhood long, and she don't know any one."

"What's the cow's name?" asked Anne, whose eyes were like dewy forget-me-nots.

"Sweetheart. The biggest girl named her, and when I went out of the gate she just sat down on the step and looked after us, and her eyes hurt me, they were so sad."

The little cow moved restlessly. "I guess I'll have to go," sighed Launcelot, standing like a Peri outside the gates of Paradise, and contrasting the coolness and quiet of the old garden with the heat and dust of the long white road. "I guess I'll have to take Sweetheart on."

But just then down the path came Perkins, dignified in white linen, and in his hand he bore a tray on which a glass pitcher, misty with coolness and showing ravishing glimpses of lemon peel and ice, promised delicious refreshment.

"You come and have some lemonade, Mr. Launcelot," said Perkins, as he set the tray on the table, "I'll hold the cow."

And, as they all insisted, Launcelot came in, and Perkins went without the gate.

But, alas, Sweetheart was a cow of many moods, and as the gay little party in the garden sipped the cooling drink in the shade of the trees, the little cow, growing restive out there in the sun with the flies worrying her, suddenly ducked her head and ran.

And after her, still holding the rope, went the immaculate Perkins, to be dragged hither and thither by her erratic movements, while he shouted desperately, "Whoa."

And after Perkins went the excited Terry-dog, and after Terry went Launcelot, and after Launcelot went Judy, and then Anne, and then far in the rear, the Judge, while Captain Jameson, too weak to run, stood at the gate and watched.

It was a brave race. Perkins had grit and he would not let go of the rope, and Sweetheart wanted to go home and she would not stop running, and so the procession went up the dusty road and down a dusty hill, and then up another dusty hill, and down a cool green bank, where seeing ahead of her a murmuring limpid stream, Sweetheart dashed into it, stood still, and placidly drank in long sighing gulps.

Perkins went in after her, and was rescued by Launcelot, while Judy and Anne stood on the bank and laughed until the tears ran down their cheeks.

Perkins laughed, too, as he emerged wet and dripping, but beaming.

"I didn't let her go," he chuckled, a little proud of his agility in his old age, and Launcelot said admiringly, "I didn't think you had it in you, Perkins," and at that Perkins chuckled more than ever.

They went back in a triumphal procession, and then Lancelot took Sweetheart away with him, and the little girls went up-stairs to dress.

The Captain and the Judge were left alone, and presently the former said:

"Why can't we put Launcelot through college, father? It's a shame he should have to work so hard."

But the Judge shook his head. "He is having something better than college, Philip," he said. "He is learning self-reliance and he will get to college if he keeps on like this and be better for the struggle. I've told Grennell a half-dozen times that I would put up the money, for I like the boy—but there is one very good reason why we can't pay his way."

"What's that?" asked the Captain, with interest.

"He won't take a cent from anybody," said the Judge, "and I like his independence."

"So do I," said the Captain, heartily, "but we will keep an eye on him, father, and help him out when we can."

An hour later as the Captain sat alone under the lilac bush, Judy came down with white ruffles a-flutter and with her brown locks beautifully combed and sat beside him.

"To-morrow is my birthday," she said, superfluously.

"My big girl," smiled the Captain, "you make me feel old, Judy mine."

She smiled back, abstractedly. "Are—are you going to give me a present, father?" she stammered.

It was a queer question, and the Captain was not sure that he liked it. Birthday presents were not to be talked about beforehand.

"Of course I am," he said, finally. "Why?"

"Will it—cost—as much as—Launcelot's cow?" asked Judy, still blushing.

"As Launcelot's cow?"

He stared at her. "Why do you want to know?" he asked.

"Well," she patted his coat collar, coaxingly, "I want you to give me the money, and let me buy back the McSwiggins cow.

"I'll buy it myself."

But she shook her head. "No, I want to give it myself. I feel—so—so—thankful, father, for my happiness, that I want to do something for somebody else, who isn't happy."

He put his hand under her chin and turned her face with its earnest eyes up to him. "You are sure you would rather have that than any other birthday present, Judy mine?" he asked, thinking how much she looked like her mother.

"I am very sure, father."

They sent for Launcelot that evening, and he entered into the plan with enthusiasm. "I can get another cow," he said, "and if they have the money and the cow both they will get along all right."

"I don't want them to know who gives it," said Judy. "I hate that way of giving. I don't want to go and stare at them and talk to them about their poverty. I think it would be nice to tie a note to Sweetheart's horns and just leave her there."

The next day about noon, a mysterious party, with a strange and unusual looking cow in their midst, crept to the back of the McSwiggins barn. Sweetheart lowed softly, as she recognized the familiar surroundings.

"Gracious, I hope they won't hear," said little Anne, "that would spoil it all."

Perkins set a heavy basket down and wiped his forehead.

"You go and look, Mr. Launcelot," he said, "and if there ain't any one around you tie her to the hitching-post, and then bring the ends of those pink ribbons back with you."

When that was accomplished, the Mysterious Four hid themselves in some bushes by the side of the road to await developments.

Presently Johnny McSwiggins, trailing listlessly towards the barn, gave one look and rushed back into the house.

"They's somethin' out thar," he said, with his eyes bulging.

Mary McSwiggins, the oldest girl, looked at him hopelessly. "I don' care ef they is. We alls too po' fer anythin' to hurt."

"But hit looks lak Sweetheart's ghos'," declared Johnny, "an' hit's got pink ribbin on. I declar' hit look lak Sweetheart's ghos', Sistuh Ma'y."

At that beloved name, Mary rushed out, while the family trailed behind, Mrs. McSwiggins bringing up the rear with the wan baby in her arms.