[Illustration:  I sat up and blushed red all over]

“I hope you’ll forgive an intruder, Mrs. Carter, but how could a mortal resist a peep into the garden of the gods if he spied the queen and her faun at play?” he said in a voice as wonderful as the smile.  By that time I had reefed in my ruffles around my feet and pushed in all my hairpins.  Billy stood spread-legged as near in front of me as he could get and said in the rudest possible tone of voice: 

“Get away from my Molly, man!”

I never was so mortified in all my life and I scrambled to my feet and came over to the fence to get between him and Billy.

“It’s a lovely day, isn’t it, Judge Wade?” I asked with the greatest interest, which I didn’t really feel, in the weather; but what could I think of to say?  A woman is apt to keep the image of a good many of the grand men she sees passing around her in queer niches in her brain, and when one steps out and speaks to her for the first time it is confusing.  Of course I have known the judge and his mother all my life, for she is one of Aunt Adeline’s best friends, but I had a feeling from the look in his eyes that that very minute was the first time he had ever seen me.  It was lovely and I blushed some more as I put my hand up to my cheek so I wouldn’t have to look right at him.

“About the loveliest day that ever happened in Hillsboro,” he said, and there was still more of the delicious smile, “though I hadn’t noticed it so especially until—­”

But I never knew what he had intended to say, for Billy suddenly swelled up like a little turkey-cock and cut out with his switch at the judge.

“Git, man, git, and let my Molly alone!” he said, in a perfect thundertone of voice; but I almost laughed, for it had such a sound in it like Doctor John’s at his most positive times with Billy and me.

“No, no, Billy, the judge is just looking over the fence at our flowers!  Don’t you want to give him a rose?” I hurried to say as the smile died out of Judge Wade’s face and he looked at Billy intently.

“How like John Moore the youngster is,” he said, and his voice was so cold to Billy that it hurt me, and I was afraid Billy would notice it.  Coldness in people’s voices always makes me feel just like ice-cream tastes.  But Billy’s answer was still more rude.

“You better go, man, before I bring my father to sic our dog on you,” he exploded, and before I could stop him his thin little legs went trundling down the garden path toward home.

Then the judge and I both laughed.  We couldn’t help it.  When two people laugh straight into each other’s eyes something feels dangerous and you get closer together.  The judge leaned farther over the fence and I went a little nearer before I knew it.

“You don’t need to keep a personal dog, do you, Mrs. Carter?” he asked, with a twinkle that might have been a spark in his eyes, and just at that moment another awful thing happened.  Aunt Adeline came out on the front porch and said in the most frozen tone of voice: