ng
with the others. She had her wish already.

It was Judith's great trouble that she was not like other little girls.
Until she was six Judith had a vague idea that she was the only child in
the world. Then she tried to make friends with two small, dirty girls
over the back fence, and found out that there were other children, but
she must not play with them. One day Norah found her crying in the
nursery because she could not think what to play, and soon after Willard
Nash, the fat little boy next door, came to dinner and into her life,
and after that, Eddie and Natalie Ward, from the white house up the
street, and Lorena Drew, from over the river. Still other children came
to her parties, so many that she could not remember their names. Then
Judith's trouble began. She was not like them.

She did not look like them; her clothes were not made by a seamstress,
but came from city shops, and had shorter skirts, and stuck out in
different places. She could not do what they did; Mollie called for her
at nine at evening parties, and she usually had to go to bed half an
hour after dinner, before it was dark. She had to do things that they
did not do: make grown-up calls with her mother and wear gloves, and
take lessons in fancy dancing instead of going to dancing school.

But she had gone to school now for almost a year, a private school in
the big billiard-room at the Larribees', but a real school, with other
children in it. They did not make fun of her clothes, or the way she
pronounced her words, very often now. She belonged to a secret society
with Rena and Natalie. She had spent one night with Natalie, though she
had to come home before breakfast. The other children did not know she
was different, but Judith knew.

Unexpected things might be required of her at a moment's notice: to be
excused from school and pass cakes at a tea at the Everards'; to leave a
picnic before the potatoes were roasted, because Mollie had appeared,
inexorable; unaccountable things, but she was to be safe to-night. May
night was not such a wonderful night for any little girl as it was for
Judith.

The lights were on in Nashs' parlour, and not turned off in the
dining-room, which meant that the rest of the family were not through
supper, but Willard was. Presently she heard three loud, unmelodious
whistles, his private signal, and a stocky figure pushed itself through
a gap in the hedge which looked, and was, too small for it, and Judith
rub