"Indeed, I will," said the doctor, and there was a mist in his eyes as he clasped her hand, "and you must let me be your friend, Judith, as I was your father's."

"I shall be glad--" she said, simply, and then and there began a friendship that some day was to bring to Judy her greatest happiness.

That afternoon the Judge and Judy drove Anne home.

"It seems just like a dream," said Anne, as they came in sight of the little gray house, with Belinda chasing b.u.t.terflies through the clover, and Becky Sharp on the lookout in the plumtree. "It seems just like a dream--the good times and all, since Friday, Judy."

"A good dream or a bad dream, Annekins?" asked Judy.

"Oh, a good one, a lovely dream, and you are the Princess in it, Judy,"

said the adoring Anne.

"Well, you are the good little fairy G.o.dmother," said Judy. "Isn't she good, grandfather?"

"Oh, I am not," said Anne, greatly embarra.s.sed at this overwhelming praise, "I am not--"

"I never could have changed my hair," affirmed Judy.

"What's that?" asked the Judge.

"Oh, a little secret," said Judy, smiling. "Shall I tell him, Anne?"

"No, indeed," Anne got very red, "no, indeed, Judy Jameson."

There was a little pause, and then the Judge said:

"I am sorry the picnic was such a failure."

"Oh, but it wasn't," cried Judy, "it wasn't a failure."

Anne and the Judge stared at her. "Did you enjoy it, Judy?" they asked in one breath.

"Of course I did," said the calm young lady.

"But the rain," said the Judge.

"That was exciting."

"And your fainting--" said Anne.

"Just an episode," said Judy, wafting it away with a flirt of her finger-tips.

"And Amelia, and Nannie, and Tommy, did you like them?" asked Anne.

"Oh, Amelia is funny, and Nannie is clever, and Tommy is a curiosity.

Oh, yes, I liked them," summed up Judy.

"And Launcelot--"

Judy smiled an inscrutable smile, as she pulled her hat low over her sparkling eyes.

"He's bossy," she began, slowly, "and we are sure to quarrel if we see much of each other--but he is interesting--and I think I shall like him, Anne."

And then Belinda and Becky discovered them, and made for their beloved mistress, and conversation on the picnic or any other topic was at an end.

CHAPTER IX

A BLUE MONDAY

There was a noisy scrambling in the vines outside of Anne's window early on Monday morning, and the little maid opened her eyes to see Belinda's white head peeping over the sill, and Belinda's white paws holding on like grim death to the ledge.

"You darling," cried Anne, sitting up, "come here," and Belinda with a plaintive mew made one last effort, pulled herself into the room, and flew to her mistress' arms.

"Where's Becky?" asked Anne, wondering why the tame crow did not follow, for in spite of their constant feuds, the two pets were inseparable.

Belinda blinked sagely, while from a shadowy corner of the room came a sepulchral croak.

"Are you there, Becky?" called Anne, peering into the darkness, and with a flap and a flutter, Becky swooped from the top of the bookcase, where she had been perched for a half-hour, waiting for Anne to wake.

Anne's bookcase was the one thing of value in the little house. It was of rich old mahogany, with diamond-shaped panes in its leaded doors, and behind the doors were books--not many of them, but very choice ones, culled from a fine library which had been sold when ruin came to Anne's grandfather and father one disastrous year.

It happened, therefore, that Anne had read much of poetry and history, and the lives of famous people, to say nothing of fairy-tales and legends, so that in the companionship of her books and pets, she had missed little in spite of her poverty and solitary life.

"How good it is to be at home," she said, as the sunlight, creeping around the room, shone on the green cover of a much-thumbed book of French fairy-tales, and then slanted off to touch the edge of a blue and gold Tennyson; "how good it is to be at home."

"How good it is to be at home," she said again, as followed by Belinda and Becky, she came, a half-hour later, into the sunlit kitchen, where the little grandmother, smiling and rosy, was pouring the steaming breakfast food into a blue bowl.

"I was afraid you might find it dull," said the little grandmother, as she kissed her, "after the good times at the Judge's."

"Oh, I did have such lovely times," sighed Anne, blissfully. She had sat up late in the moonlight the night before, telling her grandmother of them. "But they didn't make up for you and Becky and Belinda and the little gray house," and she hugged the little grandmother tightly while Belinda and Becky circled around them in great excitement, mingled with certain apprehensions for the waiting breakfast.

"But I do hate to start to school again," said Anne, when she finished breakfast, and had given Belinda a saucer of milk and Becky a generous piece of corn bread.

"Are the children going to speak their pieces this week?" asked Mrs.

Batch.e.l.ler, as Anne tied on her hat and went out into the garden to gather some roses for the teacher.

"Yes, on Sat.u.r.day," said Anne; "it's going to be awfully nice. I have asked Launcelot and Judy to come to the entertainment, and they have promised to."

"I am going to be 'Cinderella' in the tableaux," she went on, as her grandmother brought out the tiny lunch-basket and handed it to her, "and Nannie and Amelia are to be the haughty sisters. We haven't found any boy yet for the prince. I wish Launcelot went to school."

"He knows all that Miss Mary could teach him now," said the little grandmother; "his father is preparing him for college, if they ever get money enough to send him there."

"Well, if Launcelot's violets sell as well next winter as they did this, he can go, 'specially if his mother keeps her boarders all summer. He told me so the other day, grandmother."

"But he would make a lovely prince," she sighed. "Judy is going to lend me a dress. She has a trunk full of fancy costumes."