o hard to get along with, and the Judge was so
stately, and after Judy's words, even the old mansion seemed to frown
on her. Back there in the quiet fields was the little gray house, back
there was peace and love and contentment, and with all her heart she
wished that she might fly to the shelter of the little grandmother's
welcoming arms.

Perhaps something of her feeling showed in her face, for as they went
up-stairs, Judy said repentantly, "Don't mind me, Anne. I'm not a bit
nice sometimes--but--but--I was born that way, I guess, and I can't
help it."

Anne smiled faintly. She wondered what the little grandmother would
have said to such a confession of weakness. "There isn't anything in
this world that you can't help," the dear old lady would say, "and if
you're born with a bad temper, why, that's all the more reason you
should choose to live with a good one."

But Anne was not there to read moral lectures to her friend, and in
fact as Judy opened the door of her room, the little country girl
forgot everything but the scene before her.

"Oh, Judy, Judy," she cried, "how did you make it look like this? I
have never seen anything like it. Never."

From where they stood they seemed to look out over the sea--a sea
roughened by a fresh wind, so that tumbling whitecaps showed on the
tops of the green waves. Not a ship was to be seen, not a gull swept
across the hazy noon-time skies. Just water, water, everywhere, and a
sense of immeasurable distance.

"It's a mirror," Judy explained, "and it reflects a picture on the
other wall."

"It seems just as if I were looking out of a window," said Anne. "I
have never seen the sea, Judy. Never."

"I love it," cried Judy, "there is nothing like it in the whole
world--the smell of it, and the slap of the wind against your cheeks.
Oh, Anne, Anne, if we were only out there in a boat with the wind
whistling through the sails." Her face was all animation now, and
there was a spot of brilliant color in each cheek.

"How beautiful she is," Anne thought to herself. "How very, very
beautiful."

"You must have hated to leave it," she said, presently.

"I shall never get over it," said Judy with a certain fierceness. "I
want to hear the 'boom--boom--boom' of the waves--it is so quiet here,
so deadly, deadly quiet--"

"How sweet your room is," said tactful little Anne, to change the
subject.

"Yes, I do like this room," admitted Judy reluctantly.

There were pict