"And now, I'll hurry on," continued Judith, utterly absorbed in her own affairs. "I think I will take the train to New York this afternoon. I suppose it would be rather cowardly to leave mamma and Richard alone, this Christmas, especially. Good-by." She held out her hand. "What are your plans? Are you going to do anything tonight to celebrate?"
"No," answered Molly, shaking Judith's hand with as much cordiality as she could muster. "Just go to bed."
"I thought perhaps you had formed some scheme of entertainment with my cousins."
"You mean the Greens? I didn't know they were here."
"I don't know that they are here, either. They have been careful to keep their plans from me."
Molly ignored this implication.
"I hope you'll enjoy your Christmas, Judith," she said. "Perhaps something will turn up."
"Something will have to turn up after next year," exclaimed Judith, "for I have made up my mind to one thing. I shall never work for a living."
And she strode off through the pine woods with her chin in the air, as if she were defying all the powers in heaven to make her change this resolution.
Molly shivered as she knelt to clip the holly. She seemed to see a picture of a tiny little Judith standing in the middle of a vast, endless plain raging and shaking her fists at—what? The empty air. She sighed.