There had been Anne's happiness in the first place. Judy had wondered
at it until she found out that Anne's picnic experiences had been
limited to little jaunts with the children of the neighborhood, and an
occasional Sunday-school gathering. The Judge had lived his lonely
life in his lonely house, and except when Anne and her little
grandmother had been invited to formal meals, he had not interested
himself in any festivities.

There had been the early start, the meeting of the queer boy at the
crossroads--the boy with the lazy air and the alert eyes; the crowding
of the big carriage with two rather dowdy little country girls, one of
whom was, in Judy's opinion, exceedingly pert, and the other
exasperatingly placid; the laughter and the light-heartedness, the
beauty of the blossoming spring world, the restfulness of the dim
forest aisles, the excitement of the arrival on the banks of the
stream, and the arrangement of the camp for the day.

And now Judy, having declined more active occupation, was in a hammock,
swung in a circle of pines. The softened sunlight shone gold on the
dried needles under foot, and everywhere was the aromatic fragrance of
the forest. Now and then there was a flutter of wings as a nesting
bird swooped by with scarcely a note of song. A pair of redbirds came
and went--flashes of scarlet against the whiteness of a blossoming
dogwood-tree. Far away the squalling of a catbird mingled with the
mellow cadences of the mountain stream.

There was the sound of laughter, too, and the chatter of gay voices in
the distance, where the young people fished from the banks.