Part 13 (2/2)

Anne ran down-stairs to the great dim room. There were four mirrors in the parlor, and each mirror seemed to say to the little girl as she pa.s.sed, ”It is because of your hair,” and when she had picked up the pretty parasol, the mirrors said again, as she pa.s.sed them going back, ”It is because of your hair, oh, Anne, it is because of your hair that you are going to church!”

The hands of the big clock in the hall were on eleven as Anne opened the front door--and as she stepped out into the glare of suns.h.i.+ne, the church bell rang for the last time.

Anne loved the sweet old bell. Even when she had been ill, she had been able to hear just the end of its distant peal--like the ringing of a fairy chime, and when she was very little, the time she had the mumps, she had thought of it as being up in the clouds, calling the angels to wors.h.i.+p.

She listened to it for a moment, standing perfectly still on the path, then she went back into the house, and laid the parasol carefully on the sofa. After that she ran quickly upstairs, untying her hat-strings as she went.

”What in the world are you doing?” asked Judy in amazement, as Anne pulled out hairpins, and took the big black bow from her looped-up hair.

”I was thinking too much about it,” said Anne, soberly. ”I shouldn't have heard a word of the sermon if I had worn my hair that way,” and she went on braiding it into its customary tight and unbecoming pigtails.

”Well, of all things,” e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Judy, gazing at her spellbound.

But when Anne had gone, Judy stood up and watched her from the window.

”What a queer little thing she is,” she murmured, as the bobbing figure went up and down the village path, ”what a queer little thing she is.”

But somehow the actions of the queer girl distracted her mind so that she could not go back to her att.i.tude of lazy indifference. She had thought Anne a little commonplace until now; but it had not been a commonplace thing, that changing from prettiness to plainness. She even wondered if Anne had not done a finer act than she could have done herself.

”She is a queer little thing,” she said again, thoughtfully, and after a long pause, ”but she is good--”

She went to her wardrobe and took out a white dress. Then she got out her hat and gloves and laid them on the bed. And then she sat and looked at them, and then she began to dress.

And so it came about that Fairfax church had that morning two sensations. In the first place Anne Batch.e.l.ler came in late for the only time in her life, and in the second place, when the service was half over, a slender, distinguished maiden in a violet-wreathed white hat, slipped along the aisle, flas.h.i.+ng a glance at Anne as she pa.s.sed, and smiling at the delighted Judge as she entered the pew.

She fixed her eyes on the minister--and straightway forgot Anne and the Judge and Fairfax, for the minister was reading the 107th Psalm, and the words that fell on Judy's ears were pregnant with meaning to this daughter of a sailor--”They that go down to the sea in s.h.i.+ps--”

Dr. Grennell was a plain man, a man of rugged exterior--but he was a man of spiritual power--and he knew his subject. His father had been a sea-captain, and back of that were generations of Newfoundland fishermen--men who went out in the glory of the morning to be lost in the mists of the evening--men who worked while women wept--men to whom this Psalm had been the song of hope--women to whom it had been the song of comforting.

To Judy the sea meant her father. It had taken him away, it would bring him back some day, and was not this man saying it, as he ended his sermon, ”He bringeth them into their desired haven--”?

Dr. Grennell had never seen Judy, but he knew the tragedy in the Judge's life, and as she listened to him, Judy's face told him who she was.

She went straight up to him after church.

”I am Judy Jameson,” she said, ”and I want to tell you how much I liked the sermon.”

The doctor looked down into her moved young face. ”I am the son of a sailor,” he said, ”and I love the sea--”

”I love it--” she said, with a catch of her breath, ”and it is not cruel--is it?”

”No--” he began. But with a man of his fiber the truth must out; ”not always,” he amended, and took her hands in his, ”not always--”

”And men do come back,” she said, eagerly; ”the one you told about in your sermon--”

He saw the hope he had raised. ”Yes, men do come back--but not always, Judy.”

Her lip quivered. ”Let me believe it,” she pleaded, and in that moment, Judy's face foreshadowed the earnestness of the woman she was to be. ”Let me believe that my father will come some day--”

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