“It’s Judge Jameson’s horse,” Anne informed her pets, “and there’s a girl with him, with a white hat on, and they’ll stay to lunch, and there isn’t a thing but bread and milk, and little grandmother is cleaning the attic.”

She picked up her hat and flew through the orchard with Belinda a white streak behind her, and Becky Sharp in the rear, a pursuing black shadow.

“Little grandmother, little grandmother,” called Anne, when she reached a small gray house at the edge of the orchard.

At a tiny window set in the angle of the slanting roof, a head appeared—­a head tied up just now in a clean white cloth, which framed a rosy, wrinkled face.

“Little grandmother,” cried Anne, breathlessly, “Judge Jameson is coming, and there isn’t anything for lunch.”

“There’s plenty of fresh bread and milk,” said the little grandmother calmly.

“But we can’t give the Judge just that,” said Anne.

“It isn’t what you give, it’s the spirit you offer it in,” said the little grandmother, reprovingly.  “It won’t be the first time that Judge Jameson has eaten bread and milk at my table, Anne, and it won’t be the last,” and with that the little grandmother untied the white cloth, displaying a double row of soft gray curls that made her look like a charming, if elderly, cherub.

“You go and meet him, Anne,” she said “and I’ll come right down.”

So Anne and Belinda and Becky Sharp went down the path to meet the carriage.

On each side of the path the spring blossoms were coming up, tulips and crocuses and hyacinths.  Against the background of the gray house, an almond bush flung its branches of pink and white, and the grass was violet-starred.

“Isn’t that a picture, Judy,” said the Judge to the girl beside him, as they drove up, “that little old house, with the flowers and Anne and her pets?”

But Judy was looking at Anne with an uplifting of her dark, straight eyebrows.

“She must be a queer girl,” she said.

“This is my granddaughter, Judy Jameson,” was the Judge’s introduction, when he had shaken hands with Anne.  “She is going to live with me now, and I want you two to be great friends.”

To little country Anne, Judy seemed like a being from another world; she had never seen anything like the white hat with its wreath of violets, the straight white linen frock, the white cloth coat, and the low ribbon-tied shoes, and the unconscious air with which all these beautiful things were worn filled her with wonder.  Why, a new ribbon on her own hat always set her happy heart a-flutter!

She gave Judy a shy welcome, and Judy responded with a self-possession that made Anne’s head whirl.

“My dear Judge,” said the little grandmother from the doorway, “I am glad you came.  Come right in.”

“You are like your grandmother, my dear,” she told Judy, “she and I were girls together, you know.”