"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 Batch.e.l.ler, was the center of attraction.
She dropped her book. "I think I will go, after all," she said virtuously, and Judy, not knowing her motive, looked at her with envy.
"You are a good little thing, Anne," she said, and at the praise Anne"s face flamed.
She dressed hurriedly, in her one white dress, with a sigh for the becomingness of the blue kimona. When she was ready to tie on her old hat, she went to the mirror.
"It is because your hair is so pretty that you are going to church,"
said the reflection, accusingly.
"It is because of my conscience," defended Anne, but she did not dare to meet the eyes in the mirror, and she turned away quickly.
"You look awfully nice," Judy a.s.sured her, as Anne said "Good-by."
"Take my blue parasol. It is on the parlor sofa. Go and be good for both of us, Annekins."
Anne ran down-stairs to the great dim room. There were four mirrors in the parlor, and each mirror seemed to say to the little girl as she pa.s.sed, "It is because of your hair," and when she had picked up the pretty parasol, the mirrors said again, as she pa.s.sed them going back, "It is because of your hair, oh, Anne, it is because of your hair that you are going to church!"
The hands of the big clock in the hall were on eleven as Anne opened the front door--and as she stepped out into the glare of sunshine, the church bell rang for the last time.
Anne loved the sweet old bell. Even when she had been ill, she had been able to hear just the end of its distant peal--like the ringing of a fairy chime, and when she was very little, the time she had the mumps, she had thought of it as being up in the clouds, calling the angels to worship.
She listened to it for a moment, standing perfectly still on the path, then she went back into the house, and laid the parasol carefully on the sofa. After that she ran quickly upstairs, untying her hat-strings as she went.
"What in the world are you doing?" asked Judy in amazement, as Anne pulled out hairpins, and took the big black bow from her looped-up hair.
"I was thinking too much about it," said Anne, soberly. "I shouldn"t have heard a word of the sermon if I had worn my hair that way," and she went on braiding it into its customary tight and unbecoming pigtails.
"Well, of all things," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Judy, gazing at her spellbound.
But when Anne had gone, Judy stood up and watched her from the window.
"What a queer little thing she is," she murmured, as the bobbing figure went up and down the village path, "what a queer little thing she is."
But somehow the actions of the queer girl distracted her mind so that she could not go back to her att.i.tude of lazy indifference. She had thought Anne a little commonplace until now; but it had not been a commonplace thing, that changing from prettiness to plainness. She even wondered if Anne had not done a finer act than she could have done herself.
"She is a queer little thing," she said again, thoughtfully, and after a long pause, "but she is good--"
She went to her wardrobe and took out a white dress. Then she got out her hat and gloves and laid them on the bed. And then she sat and looked at them, and then she began to dress.
And so it came about that Fairfax church had that morning two sensations. In the first place Anne Batch.e.l.ler came in late for the only time in her life, and in the second place, when the service was half over, a slender, distinguished maiden in a violet-wreathed white hat, slipped along the aisle, flashing a glance at Anne as she pa.s.sed, and smiling at the delighted Judge as she entered the pew.
She fixed her eyes on the minister--and straightway forgot Anne and the Judge and Fairfax, for the minister was reading the 107th Psalm, and the words that fell on Judy"s ears were pregnant with meaning to this daughter of a sailor--"They that go down to the sea in ships--"
Dr. Grennell was a plain man, a man of rugged exterior--but he was a man of spiritual power--and he knew his subject. His father had been a sea-captain, and back of that were generations of Newfoundland fishermen--men who went out in the glory of the morning to be lost in the mists of the evening--men who worked while women wept--men to whom this Psalm had been the song of hope--women to whom it had been the song of comforting.
To Judy the sea meant her father. It had taken him away, it would bring him back some day, and was not this man saying it, as he ended his sermon, "He bringeth them into their desired haven--"?
Dr. Grennell had never seen Judy, but he knew the tragedy in the Judge"s life, and as she listened to him, Judy"s face told him who she was.
She went straight up to him after church.
"I am Judy Jameson," she said, "and I want to tell you how much I liked the sermon."
The doctor looked down into her moved young face. "I am the son of a sailor," he said, "and I love the sea--"
"I love it--" she said, with a catch of her breath, "and it is not cruel--is it?"
"No--" he began. But with a man of his fiber the truth must out; "not always," he amended, and took her hands in his, "not always--"
"And men do come back," she said, eagerly; "the one you told about in your sermon--"
He saw the hope he had raised. "Yes, men do come back--but not always, Judy."
Her lip quivered. "Let me believe it," she pleaded, and in that moment, Judy"s face foreshadowed the earnestness of the woman she was to be. "Let me believe that my father will come some day--"