Country life -- Juvenile fiction; Girls -- Juvenile fiction; Grandparents as parents -- Juvenile fiction
Judy had listened breathlessly. So vivid had been the description,
that she had seemed to see on the garden walk, the slender, imperious
figure, the intent girlish face, and out of her knowledge of her own
nature, she had entered into the struggle that had taken place in her
grandmother's heart, as she flew around the oval of the old garden.
"Oh, grandfather," she said, when the Judge's quavering voice dropped
into silence, "how lovely she was--"
"She was, indeed, and I want you to be as strong."
Judy tucked her hand into his. "I'll try," she said, simply, "thank
you for telling me, grandfather."
"I want you to be happy here, too," said the old man wistfully, and
then as she did not answer, "do you think you can, Judy?"
Judy caught her breath quickly. With all her faults she was very
honest.
She bent and kissed the Judge on his withered cheek. "You are so good
to me," she said, evasively, and with another kiss, she ran up-stairs
to Anne.
Anne was in bed and Judy thought she was asleep, but an hour later as
she lay awake lonely and restless, with her eyes fixed longingly on the
great picture of the sea, a soft seeking hand curled within her own,
and Anne whispered, "I didn't mean to make you unhappy, Judy," and
Judy, clear-eyed and repentant in the darkness of the night, murmured
back, "I was hateful, Anne," and a half hour later, the moon, peeping
in, saw the two serene, sleeping faces, cheek to cheek on the same
pillow.
CHAPTER V
TOO MANY COOKS
In spite of herself Judy was having a good time.
"I know you will enjoy it," had been Anne's last drowsy remark, and
Judy's final thought had been, "I'll go, but it will be horrid."
But it wasn't horrid.
There had been Anne's happiness in the first place. Judy had wondered
at it until she found out that Anne's picnic experiences had been
limited to little jaunts with the children of the neighborhood, and an
occasional Sunday-school gathering. The Judge had lived his lonely
life in his lonely house, and except when Anne and her little
grandmother had been invited to formal meals, he had not interested
himself in any festivities.
There had been the early start, the meeting of the queer boy at the
crossroads--the boy with the lazy air and the alert eyes; the crowding
of the big carriage with two rather dowdy little country girls, one of
whom was, in Judy's opinion, exceedingly pert, and the other
exasperatingly placid; the laughter and the light-heartedness, the
beauty of the blossoming spring world, the restfulness of the dim
forest aisles, the excitement of the arrival on the banks of the
stream, and the arrangement of the camp for the day.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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