“Different?  How?”

“Well, she isn’t like Nannie May or Amelia Morrison.”

“I should hope not,” said the little grandmother with severity.  “Nan is a tomboy, and Amelia hasn’t a bit of spirit—­not a bit, Anne.”

Anne changed the subject, skilfully.  “Do you like Judy?” she questioned.

“She is very much spoiled,” said the little grandmother, slowly, “a very spoiled child, indeed.  Her mother began it, and the Judge will keep it up.  But Judy is like her grandmother at the same age, Anne, and her grandmother turned out to be a charming woman—­it’s in the blood.”

“She says she is going to live with the Judge.”  Anne was folding her best blue ribbons, with quite a grown-up air.

“Yes.  I have never told you, Anne, but the Judge’s son was in the navy, and four years ago he went for a cruise and never came back.”

“Was he drowned?”

“He was washed overboard during a storm, and every one except Judy believes that he was drowned.  Even Judy’s mother believed it in time, but Judy won’t.  She thinks he will come back, and so she has lived on in her old home by the sea, with a cousin of her father’s for a companion—­always with the hope that he will come back.  But the cousin was married in the winter, and so Judy is to live with the Judge.  He has always wanted it that way—­but Judy clung desperately to the life in the old house by the sea.  The Judge will spoil her—­he can’t deny her anything.”

“What pretty things she has,” said Anne, looking down distastefully at the simple gown and neat but plain garments that the little grandmother was packing into a shiny black bag.

The little grandmother gave her a quick look.  “Never mind, dearie,” she said, “just remember that you are a gentlewoman by birth, and try to be sweet and loving, and don’t worry about the clothes.”

But as she tied the shabby old hat with its faded roses on the fair little head, her own old eyes were wistful.  “I wish I could give you pretty things, my little Anne,” she whispered.

Anne gave a remorseful cry.  “I don’t mind, little grandmother,” she said, “I don’t really,” and for a moment her warm young cheek lay against the soft old one.

A tiny mirror opposite reflected the two faces.  “How much we look alike,” cried Anne, noticing it for the first time.  Then she sighed.  “But my hair doesn’t curl like yours, little grandmother,” and in that lament was voiced the greatest trial, that had, as yet, come to Anne.

“Neither does Judy’s,” said Mrs. Batcheller, and Anne brightened up, but when she went down-stairs and saw Judy’s bronze locks giving out wonderful lights where they were looped up with a broad black ribbon she sighed again.

When the carriage drove around, Anne caught Belinda up in her arms.

“Good-bye, pussy cat, pussy cat,” she cried, “take care of grandmother, and don’t catch any birds.”