The fluttering of Miss Judy's heart still kept her from fixing a day for the tea-party, anxious as she was to do so. Certain small domestic irregularities also interfered with her plan. For some time past she had been much disturbed and perplexed by Merica's disappearing at unusual hours and in a most unaccountable manner, so that her simple and methodical household affairs had lately become gravely disordered.

On the morning after she had seen Doris and Lynn returning through the fragrant dusk from their visit to the graveyard, she felt so happy and strong that she resolved to give the tea-party on the following day, no matter how her heart might misbehave. It was really silly, as she said to Miss Sophia, to give up important things merely because your heart tried, every now and then, to jump out of your mouth and sometimes would hardly beat at all. It was so silly that she did not intend to do it any longer. But on going to the kitchen, in order to put her plans in motion at once, she was dismayed to find Merica missing, as she had been very often of late. Miss Judy saw, too, that the fire had not been kindled behind the gooseberry bushes; that not a single spiral of blue smoke arose above the thick green screen. She consequently began worrying in her mild way, wondering where Merica could be, and what the girl could mean by such unheard-of neglect of duty, especially on Monday morning. Hurrying around the house, the little lady went to the gate and looked anxiously up and down the big road. No one was in sight except Tom Watson, sitting in his accustomed place; but the sight of him always brought Miss Judy to an humble and almost frightened sense of her own mercies. She shook her head, and then bent it reverently, making with her little hand an unconscious gesture, which called up thoughts of the sign of the cross.

Ashamed to be worrying over such a small matter with Tom Watson's affliction in view, she forgot all about Merica, and, following her instinct to do something for those who were suffering, she went into the house to hold a consultation with Miss Sophia as to whether they had anything which they might send to Tom Watson, since they could do nothing else for him.

"There's that pretty tender little head of late lettuce," said Miss Judy, tentatively. "I am afraid, though, that Tom won't care much about it, but I can't think of anything else. And it's only to show our sympathy, anyway," she pleaded, seeing the reluctance in Miss Sophia's face and misunderstanding its meaning. "It would really make quite a picture if we were to put it on mother's best china plate, the one with the wreath of roses. And it would please poor Anne, whether poor Tom notice or not."

So busy was Miss Judy by this time, bustling about, preparing the little offering, that she hardly observed Merica's sudden reappearance, and did not think to hold her to an accounting for her absence. Merely telling her to make haste in starting the fire behind the gooseberry bushes, so that she might run across the big road with the plate of lettuce as soon as possible, Miss Judy thought only of giving pleasure to her neighbors. When the rose-wreathed green gift was ready the girl said, rather sullenly, that she did not see how she could be taking things to everybody all over the neighborhood and watching the boiling of the clothes at the same time, Miss Judy replied gently, though with a vivid blush, that she herself would watch the wash-kettle. This was an unpleasant task which the little lady had rarely attempted, but now she bravely entered upon it without flinching.

The white mysteries of the wash-kettle were by this time thickly veiled by a snowy cloud of steam. Its contents, boiling furiously, lifted big bubbles dangerously close to the dry, hot edge of the great black kettle. Miss Judy gingerly took up the wet stick which Merica had laid down, and timidly tried to push the bubbles away; but the harder her weak little hand pushed, the higher and bigger the bubbles arose. Frightened, and not knowing what else to do, Miss Judy knelt beside the steaming caldron, looking amid the smoke and steam like some pretty little witch working some good incantation, and tremblingly drew one of the blazing brands from beneath the kettle. As she moved the brand, a fountain of sparks from it shot upward, to come showering down, and one of these fell upon the biggest and whitest of the bubbles. Miss Judy saw this as it settled, and, although the kettle's contents were an indistinguishable, foaming mass, she knew instinctively that it was not one of Miss Sophia's or one of her own garments, which had been burned. She sank down on Merica's stool, near the gray border of spice pinks, with her limbs shaking so that she could not stand, and her heart beating as it had never beaten before or since the night of the fright. When she could move to get up, she crept over to the kettle and firmly pushed the black spot out of sight. But she said nothing to Merica about it, when the maid returned, more sour and sullen than she had gone away. In silence and dejection Miss Judy went back to the house, and tried to think what was best to do. Ordinarily she turned to Miss Sophia for advice in trouble or perplexity, resting with perfect trust upon the counsel which she thought she received. But this serious accident, which must distress her sister, she now locked in her own bosom. Had Lynn Gordon's shirts been ordinary shirts she felt that the matter would have been very much simpler. By severer economy, she thought that she might possibly have been able to buy him a new garment; although it was hard even for Miss Judy to see how the economy which they practised could be severer than it always was. But the little pension for their father's military services would not be due for another six months, and, moreover, Miss Judy would not have known where or how to get the costly, mysterious garment had she had the money, or how to find the fine tucks and the finer embroidery, which she had admired so greatly, though secretly, of course. She knew how fine the needle-work was, because she herself had been an expert needle-woman in the days when her blue eyes were stronger. For a moment a wild hope of copying the burned shirt, of working the same little rim of delicate tracery around the button holes, darted thrillingly across her troubled mind; but in another instant it was dismissed—wholly gone—with a sigh. She remembered, blushingly, that she had once heard Sidney say that the Queen of Sheba could not make a shirt that the King of Sheba would wear. Miss Judy did not remember ever having read in the Scriptures anything about the King of Sheba, but she had confidence in Sidney's opinions of a good many matters which she felt herself to be no judge of. No, there was plainly nothing to be done, except to darn the hole as neatly as possible, and to tell Lynn the simple truth. Luckily, Miss Judy had reason to believe that the injury had not been to the splendid, embroidered, tucked, and ruffled bosom. She blushed again more vividly—and then she turned very white as a sudden thought stabbed her like a dagger. Ah, the poor little heart! It was fluttering indeed now, and beating its soft wings like a caged wild bird.

The effect of the accident upon Doris's prospects—that was the dread which suddenly struck terror to Miss Judy's heart! What would the young gentleman and his worldly, critical grandmother think, when they thus knew that she and Miss Sophia were aware of what was going on behind the gooseberry bushes? Up to this crisis the means by which Merica earned the larger portion of her wages had seemed so distinctly apart from Miss Judy's own affairs, that she had felt no personal concern about it, beyond an occasional and passing embarrassment. Now, however, the matter became, all at once, widely different. How could she offer Doris the disrespect of making an explanation? Come what would that must be avoided, for Doris's dear sake, let the cost be what it may. A few gentle tears trickled down Miss Judy's cheeks as she sat patiently darning Miss Sophia's stockings, while the latter rocked and nodded, observing nothing unusual.

Many fanciful, impractical schemes flitted through Miss Judy's mind, rather sadly at first, but gradually turning toward her natural hopefulness. The end of her thoughts now, as always, was self-sacrifice, and the sparing of others, her sister and Doris above all. If the worst came to the worst, she could get the doctor to buy a new garment; he would know what to get and where to get it,—he would even loan her the money if she were forced to borrow. Meantime, with innate optimism, she was hoping for the best, relying upon being able to mend the burned hole, which might not be so large or so black, after all. Miss Judy's cheerful spirit could no more be held down by ill luck than an unweighted cork can be kept under water. When she laid her little head beside Miss Sophia's that night, her brain was still busily turning ways and means. If the severest economy became necessary, her sister still need not know. Once before (when their father's funeral expenses were to be met), she had been entirely successful in keeping the straits to which they were reduced from Miss Sophia's knowledge. Fortunately that hard time had come in the winter, and a turkey sent them by Colonel Fielding as a Christmas present stayed hard frozen, except as it was cooked, a piece at a time, for Miss Sophia, till the whole immense turkey had been eaten in sections by that unsuspecting lady. Miss Judy chuckled in triumph, lying there in the darkness, remembering how artful she had been in keeping Miss Sophia from observing that she herself had not tasted the turkey, and of her deep diplomacy in merely allowing Miss Sophia to think it a fresh one, every now and then, without telling an actual fib. It was warm weather now, to be sure, which made a difference—and poor Colonel Fielding could send no more presents, but the way would open nevertheless, somehow; dear Miss Judy was always sure that the way would open. No matter how severely they might have to economize in order to spare Doris a great mortification, Miss Sophia need not be deprived of her few comforts. And it was for this, to spare her sister, that Miss Judy resolved to remain silent, much as she valued Miss Sophia's advice. In the darkness of the big old room a little thin hand reached out and softly patted Miss Sophia's broad back with a protecting tenderness, full of the true mother-love.

At midnight Miss Judy arose, and creeping cautiously from her sister's side, noiselessly crossed the big, dark room, a ghostly little white figure. It was not hard to find her thimble, needles and thread, and her father's near-by spectacles, even in the darkness, since everything in that orderly old house was always in the same place; and when she had found them, she softly took up the candle and matches from the chair beside the pillow, and with her trembling hands thus filled, she stole across the passage toward the parlor. She opened the door as stealthily as any expert burglar, and closed it behind her without the faintest creak. Then, softly putting down the other things, she lighted the candle, and shading it with a shaking hand, looked around for the basket of rough-dry clothes, which, for privacy more than for any other reason, was always put in the parlor over night between washing and ironing. The stiffness with which some of the well-starched garments asserted themselves rather daunted Miss Judy when she first caught sight of them. Nevertheless, she went resolutely on, and soon found what she sought. She blushed as she gingerly drew it from among the rest, the delicate color tinting her whole sweet face, from its pretty chin to its silver frame of flossy curls. Turning the shirt over, she gave an unconscious sigh of relief to find how small the burned place really was. Burned it was, however, and she threaded her smallest needle with her finest thread and set about darning it then and there, with infinite patience and exquisite skill. As she worked, sitting on a low footstool beside the great basket, with the candle flickering upon a chair (such a pretty, pathetic little figure!) her thread involuntarily wrought delicate embroidery. While she thus wrought, she wished that she knew where gentlemen usually had their monograms embroidered on garments of this description. She could not remember ever having seen any on her father's—and she had never seen anybody else's, she remembered, suddenly blushing again. Yet she could not help feeling a little bashful pride in her handiwork. She even held it up and looked at it critically, with her curly head in its quaint little nightcap on one side,—like a bird listening to its own song,—before putting the garment back in the basket exactly where she had found it, as a measure of precaution against Merica's observing any change and gossiping about it. Every care must be taken on Doris's account. And then this being secure, Miss Judy blew out the candle and stole like a shadow back to her place by her sleeping sister, and lay down with a last sigh of relief; feeling to have done the best she could for her, for Doris, and for Lynn. She did not think of herself.

With her mind thus temporarily at rest, she soon fell asleep and dreamed a radiant vision of Doris. There was some new and wondrous glory around the girl's beautiful head, but Miss Judy could not make out what it was, though she gazed through the sweet mist of her soft dream with all her loving heart in her eager eyes. There also seemed to be some wonderful little white thing in Doris's lovely arms, resting on her breast as a bud rests against a rose; and as the light shone brighter and brighter over the rose-clouds of the silvery dream, Miss Judy saw that the rays about the girl's head were the aureole of motherhood.

"How strange our dreams are," she said to Miss Sophia, smiling and blushing, while they were engaged in the usual polite conversation over their frugal breakfast. "We dream of things we never thought of."

"Just so, sister Judy," responded Miss Sophia, who never dreamt at all unless she had the nightmare.

But the feeling of causeless happiness with which Miss Judy awakened on that morning passed by degrees into a renewed sense of uneasiness. The sound of Merica's irons banging in the kitchen appeared to arouse scruples which had merely slumbered through the night. Was it, after all, ever right to do wrong to one person in order to benefit another, even though the injured might never know of the injury? So she wondered in new alarm. It was the first time in Miss Judy's simple, gentle, unselfish life that she had been fronted by this common question, which fronts most of us sooner or later and more or less often; and she knew even less how to meet it than do those who meet it more frequently. Deeply troubled, hopelessly perplexed, she silently debated the right and the wrong of what she had done and was doing, through all the long hours of that peaceful summer day. It would have comforted her greatly to have asked Miss Sophia's advice, but she felt that any knowledge of the accident, however remote, must be distressing, and she still spared her in this as in everything else.

"Don't you think, sister Sophia, that many of poor Becky's mistakes came from not knowing just what was right? It isn't always easy for any of us to tell. We can't be so much to blame—when we are unable to see our way," she said, after a long silence, hanging wistfully upon Miss Sophia's reply.

"Just so, sister Judy," responded Miss Sophia, with such decisive firmness as made Miss Judy feel for the moment that there could be no uncertainty; that it surely must be as Miss Sophia said.

But the sight of Doris and Lynn strolling by on their daily walk set the balance wavering again. She felt the constraint in her own manner while she chatted with them over the gate. She saw the wondering and somewhat anxious gaze which Doris fixed upon her, and she tried to laugh and speak naturally. But in spite of all that she could do, the uneasy sense of wrong-doing grew steadily. She had not before fully realized how fine the young man's linen was—till she guiltily regarded it over the gate. Its very fineness and the number of its tucks filled her with a conviction of guilt toward him. She was strongly tempted to call the young couple back and make a clean breast of it. Then the fear of some possible humiliation of Doris held her from it. So that she went on, sorely troubled, still turning the matter this way and that, till a sudden thought gave her a fresh shock of fear. When the young man saw the darned place, as he was bound to do some time or other, he would be sure to think it Merica's doing. There could be no two sides to the right or wrong of allowing that to happen. Quite in a panic now, fairly driven into a corner, from which there was no escape, Miss Judy sprang up, and rushed out to stop the doctor, who chanced to be passing at that very moment.

He got down from his horse and came up to the fence, throwing the bridle over his arm, always willing and glad to have a word with Miss Judy, no matter how weary he might be. He saw at once that she was deeply agitated, and that her blue eyes were full of tears. A country doctor of the noblest type—as this one was—is the tower of strength on which many a community leans. He touches most of the phases of life, perhaps; certainly he comes in contact with every phase of his own environment. He is, therefore, seldom to be taken completely by surprise, however strange a story he may hear. Yet Dr. Alexander now looked at Miss Judy for a moment in utter bewilderment after she had poured out hers; his thoughts—astonishment, amusement, sympathy, understanding, and, above all, affection—coming out by turns on his rugged, open face, like rough writing on parchment.

"God bless my soul!" he said. "Who ever heard of such a thing! My dear, dear little lady! Why, you'd do that young jackanapes the honor of his life if you burnt his shirt off his back!"

Miss Judy blushed and showed how shocked she was at such loud and indelicate mention of such an intimate article of clothing.

"But I am really in great trouble," she urged gently, her eyes filling again. "If you would only tell Lynn, doctor. It seems an indelicate thing for a lady to speak of to a gentleman. If you would only break it to him, and explain to him how it happened, and that Merica was not to blame—and—and that Doris knew nothing—nothing in the world—about Merica's business."

"Of course I'll tell him," the doctor agreed heartily. "I'll tell him every word that you've told me," he said, mounting his tired old horse, which was almost as tired as he was himself. "And let the young rascal so much as crack a single smile, if he dares;" the doctor added to himself, as he rode off, looking back and carrying his shabby hat in his big hand, as long as he could see the quaint, pathetic little figure standing at the gate.