e, and what goes on in it."

"What does go on?"

"You'll know soon enough."

"I'm not marked with it. I've got a birthmark, but it's a strawberry, on
my left side, like the princesses have in the fairy tales."

"You are a kind of a princess, Miss Judy."

"Is that a bad thing to be, Nana?"

"It's a lonesome thing."

"My strawberry's fading. Mother says it will go away."

"It won't go away. What we're born to be, we will be, Miss Judy----.
Bless your heart, you're crying, with the big eyes of you. What for,
dear?"

"I don't know. I don't want to be a princess. I don't want to be
lonesome. I hate the Everards."

"Well, there's many to say that now, and there'll be more to say it
soon." Norah muttered this darkly, into her yellow bowl of apples, but
Judith heard: "Here, eat this apple, child. You musn't hate anybody."

"I do. I hate the Everards."

Queer things came into your head to say when you were talking with
Norah, who had an aunt with the second sight, and told beautiful fairy
tales herself, and even believed in fairies; Judith did not. The
Everards gave Judith and no other little girl in town presents at
Christmas, and invited Judith and no other little girl to lunch. They
had a great deal to do with her trouble, her serious trouble, which she
would not discuss even with Norah. But she did not really hate the
Everards--certainly not to-night. She was too happy.

Judith was going out to hang May-baskets.

So was every other little girl in town who wanted to, and it was a
wonderful thing to be doing to-night. It was really May night, by the
weather as well as the calendar--the kind of night that Norah's fairies
meant should come on the first of May: warm, with a tiny chill creeping
into the air as the dark came, a pleasant, shivery chill, as if there
might really be fairies or ghosts about. It was still and clear. One
star, that had just come up above the horse-chestnut tree, looked very
small and bright and close, as if it had climbed up into the sky out of
the dark, clustering leaves of the tree.

This was the star that Judith usually wished on, but she could wish on
the moon to-night; Norah had told her so; wish once instead of three
nights running, and get her wish whether she thought of the red fox's
tail or not. The new moon of May was a wishing moon.

A wishing moon! The small white figure on the steps cuddled itself into
a smaller heap. Judith sighed happily and closed her eyes. She was goi