But now that more than a month has passed, I really don’t mind it so much.  I feel so strong and prancy all the time that I can’t keep from bubbling.  I have to smile at myself.

Then another thing that helps is Billy and his ball.  I never could really play with him before, but now I can’t help it.  But an awful thing happened about that yesterday.  We were in the garden playing over by the lilac bushes, and Billy always beats me because when it goes down the slope he throws himself down and rolls over on the grass.  I went after him.  And what did Billy do but begin the kind of a tussle we always have in the big armchair in the living-room!  Billy chuckled and squealed, while I laughed myself all out of breath.  And then, looking right over my front hedge, I discovered Judge Wade.  I wish I could write down how I felt, for I never had that sensation before, and I don’t believe I’ll ever have it again.

I have always thought that Judge Wade was really the most wonderful man in Hillsboro, not because he is a judge so young in life that there is only a white sprinkle in his lovely black hair that grows back off his head like Napoleon’s and Charles Wesley’s, but because of his smile, which you wait for so long that you glow all over when you get it.  I have seen him do it once or twice at his mother when he seats her in their pew at church, and once at little Mamie Johnson when she gave him a flower through their fence as he passed by one day last week, but I never thought I should have one all to myself.  But there it was, a most beautiful one, long and slow and distinctly mine—­at least I didn’t think much of it was for Billy.  I sat up and blushed as red all over as I do when I first hit that tub of cold water.

“I hope you’ll forgive an intruder, Mrs. Carter, but how could a mortal resist a peep into such a fairy garden 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 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 hedge 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 still more as I put my hand up to my cheek so that I wouldn’t have to look right at him.