There was a general laugh, and Tom and Lucy thought there could not be so pleasant an old gentleman as Judge Keane anywhere.

Miss Keane elected Tom for her cavalier, and made him feel very important indeed, by treating him as if he were quite a man; and they got into a very interesting talk about the great painters and their work.  She was astonished to find what a thorough knowledge the boy had of the subject, and how well he could talk on what interested him most.

“Robert must see this young artist,” was her mental comment.  The judge followed behind with Mr. Goldthwaite; while Mr. George Keane and Miss Goldthwaite brought up the rear, walking very slowly, and talking very earnestly.  Nobody took any notice of them whatever, evidently being of opinion that they were quite capable of amusing each other.  The waggon-path, winding gradually up the mountain side, was rough and stony, and even Billy’s cautious feet stumbled sometimes; and the two girls were jolted so that they laughed till they cried.

“I think we’d better get out; don’t you, Lucy?” cried Minnie at last, “else there’ll be none of us left to see the top of the Peak.  I never was so sore in my life.  Isn’t it fun though?”

“Yes; and the sun is so bright, and everybody so kind, and everything so pleasant, I don’t know what to do,” said Lucy with softening eyes.  Minnie looked at her curiously.

“I say, don’t you have any good times at your home, Lucy?” she asked soberly.

“Sometimes—­not very often,” answered Lucy reluctantly.

“I don’t think your aunt is a very nice woman anyway,” said Minnie with her usual candour.  “She looked at me so one day in church, ’cause I laughed right out at a funny little dog with a stumpy tail running in and right up to Mr. Goldthwaite.  Wouldn’t you have laughed too?”

“I don’t know,” said Lucy; “if it was very funny, I daresay I would.”

“How pretty you are,” said Minnie after a while; “my sister Alice says so—­I guess she knows.”  Lucy blushed, not being accustomed to such plain speaking.  “I think Miss Goldthwaite perfectly elegant,” went on the young critic.  “She is going to marry my brother George, do you know?”

“Is she?” asked Lucy, much interested.

“Yes; and papa and mamma are crazed about her.  Everybody is.  Isn’t she just splendid?”

“There is nobody like her,” answered Lucy.  Minnie could never know what she had been and was to her.

“Lovers are stupid, don’t you think?” asked Minnie again.  “They always go away by themselves, and things; you just watch George and Carrie to-day.  It is a great trial to me.”

“What is?” asked Mr. George Keane, pausing at the side of the waggon.  Minnie laughed outright, so did Lucy.

“It’s a secret,” replied she in a very dignified way.—­“O Miss Goldthwaite, are you coming into the waggon?”

“Yes;—­will you make room for me, Lucy?”