ted breathlessly.

"You are?"

Judith nodded. She could not speak.

"Well!" Willard's feelings were mixed, his face was not fashioned to
express a conflict of emotions, and words failed him, too. "You're a
queer kid. Why didn't you tell me before?"

"Aren't you glad, Willard?"

"You'll get sleepy."

"Aren't you glad?"

"Sure I'm glad. But you can't run, and you are a cry-baby."

These were known facts, not insults, but now Judith's eyes had stopped
dancing.

"Judy, are you mad with me?"

"No."

"You're the queerest kid." Up the street, he caught sight of a member of
a simpler sex than Judith's. "There's Ed coming out of the gate. I've
got to see him about something. See you later. Don't be mad. So long!"

The house was astir behind Judith. Father was opening and shutting
doors, and hunting for things. Norah was helping mother into her wraps
and scolding. Somebody was telephoning. Mother's carriage was late.

But it was turning into the yard now, a big, black hack from the Inn,
with a white horse. Judith liked white horses best. The front door
opened, and her father, very tall and blond, with his shirt-front
showing white, and her mother, with something shiny in her black hair,
swept out.

"Look who's here," said her father, and picked her up with his hands
under her elbows. "Going to paint the town red to-night, son?"

"Red?" breathed Judith. How strong father was, and how beautiful mother
was. She smelled of the perfume in the smallest bottle on the
toilet-table. How kind they both were. "Red?"

"Harry, you see she doesn't care a thing about going. She'd be better
off in bed. Careful, baby! Your hair is catching on my sequins. Put her
down, Harry. You'll spoil the shape of her shoulders some day."

"Don't you want to go, son?"

"I--" Judith choked, "I----"

"Well, she's not crazy about it, is she?"

"Then do send her to bed."

"No, you can't break your promise to a child, Minna."

"Prig," said mother sweetly, as if a prig were a pleasant thing to be.
"All right, let her go, then. Oh, Harry, look at that horse. They've
sent us the knock-kneed old white corpse again."

Mother hurried him into the carriage, and it clattered out of the yard.
They did not look back. They were always in a hurry, and rather cross
when they went to the Everards. For once she was glad to see them go,
such a dreadful crisis had come and passed. How could father think she
did not want to go, father who used to hang