“Run up the back way and fix up,” said Judy, “and I’ll talk to her until you come down.”

Lutie Barton brought with her the gossip of the town.  There had been a dance at the big hotel the night before, a sailing party down the bay in the afternoon had been caught in a thunder shower, and all the girls’ hats had been ruined, and there had been a burglary at one of the cottages in an outlying district.

Anne jumped when they said that.  “What did they steal?” she faltered, with her conversation with Perkins fresh in her mind.

“Everything, my dear,” said Lutie, who did everything by extremes, and who wore the highest pompadour, and the highest heels, and who had the smallest waist and the largest hat that Anne had ever seen, and who always used the superlative when telling a tale.

“They stole every single thing down to the very shoes, and the kitten from the rug.”

“Oh,” said Anne, thinking of Belinda, “the dear little kitten.  What did they want with it?”

“It was a Persian, and this morning it came back, but the silver collar was gone from its neck, and they took even a thimble from a work-basket, and a box of candy and a cake!”

“Did they get anything valuable?” asked Anne.

“All of Mrs. Durant’s diamonds and the family silver,” said Lutie.  “My dear, Mrs. Durant is ill, absolutely ill, and the worst of it is that she saw the burglar, and it frightened her so that she hasn’t gotten over it yet.”

“How dreadful,” said little Anne, thinking of the great sideboard and all of the Jameson silver that she and Perkins had cleaned.  “Oh, Judy, suppose they should come here!”

But Judy was standing by the window, watching a figure that slipped from the boat-house to the wharf with a bundle on his shoulder, the figure of a small boy, with his cap pulled low.

“Such things are like lightning; they never strike twice in the same place,” she said, indifferently.  “Don’t go, Lutie.”

“Oh, I must,” gushed Lutie.  “I was just dying to see you, Anne, for a minute, so I came with Judy.  But I must go.  They will think I am dead.”

But she stopped to ask a giggling question.  “Tell me about Launcelot Bart, Anne,” she begged.  “Judy happened to mention him, but she wouldn’t tell me a thing.  I think they must have an awful case, for she is too quiet about him for anything.  Is he nice?”

“He is the nicest boy I know,” said Anne, enthusiastically.

“Oh, oh,” gurgled silly Lutie, shaking her finger at the two girls as they stood together on the top step of the porch.  “Don’t get jealous of each other, you two.”

“Jealous?” asked Anne’s innocent eyes.

“Jealous?” blazed Judy’s indignant eyes.

“Don’t be a goose, Lutie.”  Judy was trying to control her temper.  “Anne and I aren’t grown up yet, and I hope we never will grow up and be horrid and self-conscious.  Launcelot is our friend, and I didn’t talk about him because I had plenty of other subjects.”