and always another touch of color added to the daintily arranged nosegay in her hand. And then, of a sudden, as she chanced to look ahead, she observed a number of the school-boys come swarming down to the foot-bridge; and she knew right well that one of them—to wit, young Willie Hart—would think a holiday quite thrown away and wasted if he did not manage to seek out and secure the company of his pretty cousin Judith.
"Ah! there, now," she was saying to herself, as she watched the school-boys come over the bridge one by one and two by two, "there, now, is my sweetheart of sweethearts; there is my prince of lovers! If ever I have lover as faithful and kind as he, it will go well. 'Nay, Susan,' says he, 'I love you not; you kiss me hard, and speak to me as if I were still a child; I love Judith better.' And how cruel of my father to put him in the play, and to slay him so soon; but perchance he will call him to life again—nay, it is a favorite way with him to do that; and pray Heaven he bring home with him to-morrow the rest of the story, that Prue may read it to me. And so are you there, among the unruly imps, you young Prince Mamillius? Have you caught sight of me yet, sweetheart blue-eyes? Why, come, then; you will outstrip them all, I know, when you get sight of Cousin Judith; for as far off as yon are, you will reach me first, that I am sure of; and then, by my life, sweetheart Willie, you shall have a kiss as soft as a dove's breast!"
And so she went on to meet them, arranging the colors of her straggling blossoms the while, with now and again a snatch of careless song:
Come, blow thy horn, hunter!
Come, blow thy horn, hunter!
Come, blow thy horn—jolly hunter!
CHAPTER II.
SIGNIOR CRAB-APPLE.
There was much ado in the house all that day, in view of the home-coming on the morrow, and it was not till pretty late in the evening that Judith was free to steal out for a gossip with her friend and chief companion, Prudence Shawe. She had not far to go—but a couple of doors off, in fact; and her coming was observed by Prudence herself, who happened to be sitting at the casemented window for the better prosecution of her needle-work, there being still a clear glow of twilight in the sky. A minute or so thereafter the two friends were in Prudence's own chamber, which was on the first floor, and looking out to the back over barns and orchards; and they had gone to the window, to the bench there, to have their secrets together. This Prudence Shawe was some two years Judith's junior—though she really played the part of elder sister to her; she was of a pale complexion, with light straw-colored hair; not very pretty, perhaps, but she had a restful kind of face that invited friendliness and sympathy, of which she had a large abundance to give in return. Her custom was of a Puritanical plainness and primness, both in the fashion of it and in its severe avoidance of color; and that was not the only point on which she formed a marked contrast to this dear cousin and wilful gossip of hers, who had a way of pleasing herself (more especially if she thought she might thereby catch her father's eye) in apparel as in most other things. And on this occasion—at the outset at all events—Judith would not have a word said about the assignation of the morning. The wizard was dismissed from her mind altogether. It was about the home-coming of the next day that she was all eagerness and excitement; and her chief prayer and entreaty was that her friend Prudence should go with her to welcome the travellers home.
"Nay, but you must and shall, dear Prue; sweet mouse, I beg it of you!" she was urging. "Every one at New Place is so busy that they have fixed upon Signior Crab-apple to ride with me; and you know I cannot suffer him; and I shall not have a word of my father all the way back, not a word; there will be nothing but a discourse about fools, and idle jests, and wiseman Matthew the hero of the day—"
"Dear Judith, I cannot understand how you dislike the old man so," her companion said, in that smooth voice of hers. "I see no garden that is better tended than yours."