Judy Part 4

It was a quiet spot. A place where old-fas.h.i.+oned flowers bloomed modestly in retired corners, veiled from curious stares by a high hedge of aromatic box.

There was a fountain in the Judge's garden, half-hidden by an encircling border of gold and purple fleur-de-lis, where a marble cupid rode gaily on the back of a bronze dolphin, from whose mouth spouted a stream of limpid water.

There was, too, in summer, a tangled wilderness of roses--hundred-leaved ones, and little yellow ones, and crimson ones whose tall bushes topped the hedge, and great white ones that clung lovingly to the old stone wall that was the western barrier of the garden. And there was a bed of myrtle, and another one of verbenas, over which the b.u.t.terflies hovered on hot summer days, and another of pansies, and along the wall great clumps of valley lilies. And at the end of the path was a lilac bush that the Judge's wife had planted in the first days of bridal happiness.

For years it had been a lonely garden, as lonely as the old Judge's heart--for fifteen years, ever since the death of his wife, and the departure of his only son to sail the seas, the darkened windows of the old house had cast a shadow on the garden, a shadow that had fallen upon the Judge as he had walked there night after night in solitude.

But this evening as he sat on the bench under the lilac bush, a broad bar of golden light shone down upon the gay cupid and the sleeping flowers, and from the open window came the lilt of girlish laughter and the rippling strain of the "Spring Song," as Judy's fingers touched the keys of the little piano lightly.

Presently the music changed to a wild das.h.i.+ng strain.

"It's a Spanish dance," Judy explained to Anne. She was swaying back and forth, keeping time with her body to the melodies that tinkled from her fingers.

"I can dance it, too," she added.

"Oh, do dance it, Judy--please," cried Anne. She was living in a sort of Arabian Nights' dream. Hitherto the girls that she had known had been demure and unaccomplished, so that Judy seemed a brilliant creature, fresh from fairyland.

With a crash the music stopped, as Judy jumped up from the bench, and went into the hall.

"Move the chairs back," she directed over her shoulder, and Anne bustled about, and cleared a s.p.a.ce in the centre of the polished floor.

In the meantime Judy bent over a great trunk in the hall.

"Oh, dear," she cried, as she piled a bewildering array of things on the floor--bright hued gowns, picturesque hats, and a miscellaneous collection of fans and ribbons. "Oh, dear, of course they are at the very bottom."

"They" proved to be a scarlet silk shawl and a pair of high-heeled scarlet slippers. Judy wound the shawl about her in the Spanish manner, put on the high-heeled slippers, stuck an artificial red rose in her dark hair, and stepped forth as das.h.i.+ng a senorita as ever danced in old Seville.

"Oh, Judy," was all that Anne could say. She plumped herself down in a big chair, too happy for words, and waved to Judy to go on, while she held her breath lest she might wake from this marvelous enchantment.

Out in the garden, the Judge heard the click of castanets and the tap of the high heels.

"What is the child doing," he wondered.

As the dance proceeded, the sound of the castanets grew wilder and wilder, and the high heels beat double raps on the floor. Then, suddenly, with one sharp "click-ck" the dance ended, and there was silence.

Then Anne cried, "Do it again, do it again, Judy," and the Judge clapped his applause from the garden below.

At the sound the girls poked their heads out of the window.

"You ought to see her, Judge," Anne's tone was rapturous, "you just ought to see her."

"Shall I come down?" Judy asked. She was glowing, radiant.

"Yes, indeed. Come and dance on the path."

Five minutes later Judy was whirling, wraithlike in the white light of the moon, which turned her scarlet trappings to silver. Anne sat by the Judge and made admiring comments.

"Isn't it fine?" she asked.

The Judge nodded.

"I saw the Spanish girls do it when I was young," he said, beating time with his cane, "and Judy lived in Spain with her mother for a year, you'd think the child was born to it," and he chuckled with pride.

But when Judy came up after the last wild dash, he was more moderate in his praises. The Judge had been raised in the days when children heard often the rhyme, "Praise to the face, is open disgrace," and at times he reminded himself of the merits of such early discipline.

"I don't know what your grandmother would have thought of it, my dear,"

he said, with a doubtful shake of his head, "in her days, young ladies didn't do such things."

"Didn't grandmother dance?" asked Judy.

"Indeed she did," said the Judge with enthusiasm. "Why, Judy, there wasn't a couple that could beat your grandmother and me when we danced the Virginia reel."

Judy threw herself down on the bench beside him, and fanned herself with the end of her shawl.

"Can you dance," she asked, "can you really dance, grandfather? I'm so glad. Some day I shall give a party, and have all the people of the neighborhood, and we will end it with the reel. May I, grandfather?"

"You may do anything you wish," was the Judge's rash promise, and with a quick laugh, Judy saw her opportunity and took advantage of it.

"Then let's go down to the kitchen," she said, "and get something to eat now. I didn't eat much dinner, and I am starved. Aren't you, Anne?"

But Anne had been trained in the way she should go. "I--I haven't thought of being hungry," she hesitated. "I never eat before I go to bed."

"Oh, I do," said Judy, scornfully. "And dancing makes me ravenous."

"But Perkins has retired, and Mary, and everybody--" expostulated the Judge.

"Who cares for Perkins?" asked Judy with her nose in the air.

"Well," said the Judge, who was hopelessly the slave of his servants, "he might not like it--"

"Judge Jameson," said Judy, shaking a reproachful finger at him, "I believe you are afraid of your butler."

"Well, perhaps I am, my dear," said the Judge, weakly, "but Perkins is an individual of a great deal of firmness, and he carries the keys, and I don't believe you will find anything, anyhow. And if you eat up anything that he has ordered for breakfast, you will have an unpleasant time accounting for it in the morning. I know Perkins, my dear--and he is rather difficult--rather difficult. But he is a very fine servant,"

he amended hastily.

"You leave him to me in the morning," said Judy, "I'll make the peace, grandfather, and I simply can't be starved to-night."

"But Perkins--"

"Perkins won't say a word to you," said Judy, "and if he does, you can say you were not in the kitchen, because you are to stay right here, and Anne and I will bring things up, and make you a receiver of stolen goods."

She was very charming in spite of her wilfulness, and when she ended her little speech, by tucking her hand through the Judge's arm, and looking up at him mischievously, the old gentleman gave in.

The two girls were gone for a long time, so long that the Judge nodded on his bench.

He was waked by a shriek that seemed to come from the depths of the earth.

"What--is the matter, what's the matter, my dear?" he cried, starting up.