Country life -- Juvenile fiction; Girls -- Juvenile fiction; Grandparents as parents -- Juvenile fiction
"'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."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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