Judy | Page 7

a brilliant creature, fresh from fairyland.
With a crash the music stopped, as Judy jumped up from the bench, and went into the hall.
"Move the chairs back," she directed over her shoulder, and Anne bustled about, and cleared a space in the centre of the polished floor.
In the meantime Judy bent over a great trunk in the hall.
"Oh, dear," she cried, as she piled a bewildering array of things on the floor--bright hued gowns, picturesque hats, and a miscellaneous collection of fans and ribbons. "Oh, dear, of course they are at the very bottom."
"They" proved to be a scarlet silk shawl and a pair of high-heeled scarlet slippers. Judy wound the shawl about her in the Spanish manner, put on the high-heeled slippers, stuck an artificial red rose in her dark hair, and stepped forth as dashing a se?orita as ever danced in old Seville.
"Oh, Judy," was all that Anne could say. She plumped herself down in a big chair, too happy for words, and waved to Judy to go on, while she held her breath lest she might wake from this marvelous enchantment.
Out in the garden, the Judge heard the click of castanets and the tap of the high heels.
"What is the child doing," he wondered.
As the dance proceeded, the sound of the castanets grew wilder and wilder, and the high heels beat double raps on the floor. Then, suddenly, with one sharp "click-ck" the dance ended, and there was silence.
Then Anne cried, "Do it again, do it again, Judy," and the Judge clapped his applause from the garden below.
At the sound the girls poked their heads out of the window.
"You ought to see her, Judge," Anne's tone was rapturous, "you just ought to see her."
"Shall I come down?" Judy asked. She was glowing, radiant.
"Yes, indeed. Come and dance on the path."
Five minutes later Judy was whirling, wraithlike in the white light of the moon, which turned her scarlet trappings to silver. Anne sat by the Judge and made admiring comments.
"Isn't it fine?" she asked.
The Judge nodded.
"I saw the Spanish girls do it when I was young," he said, beating time with his cane, "and Judy lived in Spain with her mother for a year, you'd think the child was born to it," and he chuckled with pride.
But when Judy came up after the last wild dash, he was more moderate in his praises. The Judge had been raised in the days when children heard often the rhyme, "Praise to the face, is open disgrace," and at times he reminded himself of the merits of such early discipline.
"I don't know what your grandmother would have thought of it, my dear," he said, with a doubtful shake of his head, "in her days, young ladies didn't do such things."
"Didn't grandmother dance?" asked Judy.
"Indeed she did," said the Judge with enthusiasm. "Why, Judy, there wasn't a couple that could beat your grandmother and me when we danced the Virginia reel."
Judy threw herself down on the bench beside him, and fanned herself with the end of her shawl.
"Can you dance," she asked, "can you really dance, grandfather? I'm so glad. Some day I shall give a party, and have all the people of the neighborhood, and we will end it with the reel. May I, grandfather?"
"You may do anything you wish," was the Judge's rash promise, and with a quick laugh, Judy saw her opportunity and took advantage of it.
"Then let's go down to the kitchen," she said, "and get something to eat now. I didn't eat much dinner, and I am starved. Aren't you, Anne?"
But Anne had been trained in the way she should go. "I--I haven't thought of being hungry," she hesitated. "I never eat before I go to bed."
"Oh, I do," said Judy, scornfully. "And dancing makes me ravenous."
"But Perkins has retired, and Mary, and everybody--" expostulated the Judge.
"Who cares for Perkins?" asked Judy with her nose in the air.
"Well," said the Judge, who was hopelessly the slave of his servants, "he might not like it--"
"Judge Jameson," said Judy, shaking a reproachful finger at him, "I believe you are afraid of your butler."
"Well, perhaps I am, my dear," said the Judge, weakly, "but Perkins is an individual of a great deal of firmness, and he carries the keys, and I don't believe you will find anything, anyhow. And if you eat up anything that he has ordered for breakfast, you will have an unpleasant time accounting for it in the morning. I know Perkins, my dear--and he is rather difficult--rather difficult. But he is a very fine servant," he amended hastily.
"You leave him to me in the morning," said Judy, "I'll make the peace, grandfather, and I simply can't be starved to-night."
"But Perkins--"
"Perkins won't say a word to you," said Judy, "and if he does, you can say you were