“Goodness,” cried Anne, and shut her book with a bang, “it is almost church time, and we aren’t dressed.”

But Judy did not move.  “We are not going to church,” she said, lazily.

Not going to church!  Anne faced Judy in amazement.  Never since she could remember had she stayed away from church—­except when she had had the measles and the mumps!

“I told grandfather last night that we should be too tired,” explained Judy, “and he won’t expect us to go.”

“Oh,” said Anne, and picked up her book, luxuriating in the prospect of a whole morning in which to read.

She wasn’t quite comfortable, however.  She was not a bit tired, and she had never felt better in her life—­and yet she was staying away from church.

But the book she had opened was a volume of Dickens’ Christmas stories, and in three minutes she was carried away from the little town of Fairfax to the heart of old London, and from the warmth of spring to the bitterness of winter, as she listened with Toby Veck to the music of the chimes that rang from the belfry tower.

It seemed only a part of the tale, therefore, when the bell of Fairfax church pealed out the first warning of the Sunday service to all the countryside.

“Ding dong, din, all come in, all come in,” the bell had said to Anne since childhood, and now it called her, until it silenced the crashing voices of the bells of old London, and she had to listen.

She laid down her book.  “The church bell is ringing,” she said to Judy.

“I hear it,” said Judy, indifferently.

Anne stood up—­with a sidelong glance at the enchanting vision in the mirror.  “I think I ought to go,” she hesitated.

Judy turned to look at her.

“Don’t be so good, Anne,” she said, with a teasing laugh; “be wicked like I am, just for one day—­”

“You are not wicked.”

“Well, I haven’t a proper sense of duty.”

“You have too.  You just like to say such things, Judy, just to shock people.”

Which shows that in two days, wise little Anne had found Judy out!

“Well, I’m not going to church, anyhow,” and Judy settled back and closed her eyes.

Anne’s book was open at the fascinating place where Toby Veck eats his dinner on the church steps; the deep rose-cushioned chair opened its wide arms in comfortable invitation.  It was the little girl’s first taste of the temptation of ease,—­and she yielded.  But as she picked up her book again, she soothed her conscience with the righteous resolve—­“I will go to service this afternoon.”

As she settled back, the girl reflected in the mirror looked at her.

“Your hair looks beautiful,” said the reflection.

Anne dropped her eyes to her book.

Presently she raised them.

“If only the people in church could see,” said the charming reflection.

Anne imagined the sensation she would make as she walked up the aisle.  None of the girls in Fairfax or the country around had ever worn their hair puffed over their ears or tied with broad black ribbon.  There would be a little flutter, and during church time the girls would look at nothing else, and it would be delightful to feel that for once she, little plain Anne Batcheller, was the center of attraction.