“Well, you had better leave it at home the next time you go on a wild goose chase.”

“There won’t be any next time,” said Judy, with a sober face.

Launcelot looked up from the coin with a quick smile, which faded as she gave a hoarse little cough.

“Go into the house, child,” he ordered, “you will take cold out here—­”

“Oh,” in that moment Judy was herself again, tempestuous, defiant, “don’t be so bossy, Launcelot.”

“Go in,” he said again, but she threw up her head and lingered.

“What a beautiful morning it is,” she said.  “Look, Launcelot, the sun, it is like a ball of gold through the mist.”

But Launcelot was looking at her—­at the melancholy little figure in the trailing red gown, with the dark hair braided down on each side of the white face, and hanging in a long braid at the back.

“Go in,” he said, for the third time, peremptorily.  “You are tired to death, and you will be sick—­”

CHAPTER XV

THE SPANISH COINS

Three weeks after Judy’s exciting experience at the gipsy camp, an interesting party of travellers were gathered on the platform at Fairfax station.

There was a stately old man, imposing in spite of a tweed cap and sack coat.  By his side stood a slender girl in gray, who coughed now and then, and near them, perched on a brand-new trunk, which bore the initials “A.  B.” was a small maiden, resplendent in a modish blue serge, a scarlet reefer, a stiff sailor hat of unquestionable up-to-dateness, and tan shoes!

And the resplendent maiden was Anne!

“You must let her go to the seashore with us,” the Judge had said to Mrs. Batcheller.  “Judy hasn’t been well since she took that heavy cold the night she stayed out in the pasture—­and I know the child pines for the sea, although she doesn’t say a word.  And I don’t want her separated from Anne.  She needs young company.”

The little grandmother consented reluctantly.  She was very proud, and although for years the Judge had tried to do something substantial to help his old friend in her poverty, he had so far been unsuccessful in breaking down the barrier of independence which she had set up.

One promise he had wrung from her, however, that when Anne was old enough, he was to send her away to school, where she would be fitted to take her place worthily in a long line of cultured people.  This he had demanded and obtained by virtue of his friendship for her father and grandfather, and for the “sake of Auld Lang Syne.”

“But Anne’s things will do very well,” said Mrs. Batcheller, when the Judge tried tactfully to suggest that he be allowed to send Anne’s order with Judy’s.

“No, they won’t,” the Judge had insisted, bluntly, “Judy’s old home at The Breakers is somewhat isolated, but there will be trips that the girls will take together, and friends will call, and I can’t have little Anne unhappy because she hasn’t a pretty gown to wear.”