Page:The Yellow Book - 13.djvu/283

Rh No more racing! No more wild charges home from the park, passing everything on the road, with Judy and Kit sitting proudly behind her! No more all-day rambles through woods and along the lake! No more of anything that was!

Annie's heart was as heavy as a horse's heart could well be; heavy, and a little indignant as well. Accordingly, when Joe, following instructions, placed the bran-mash in the measure before her, she tipped it over with a viciousness never before seen in her and resolutely refused to take it.

But that was her one and only offence. From that day she bore ills with the dignity of a dethroned monarch; and if Kit's neglect wounded her, she only betrayed it by an added gentleness to him on those now rare occasions when he remembered her.

And so the bright summer slipped away, and October with its mellow fulness was at hand.

Judy, always more or less influenced by that subtle melancholy of the autumn, was this year particularly affected by it. It was a singular trait of Kit's almost passionate affection for her, that whenever she was ill he bore himself toward her with something almost approaching harshness. It seemed to be his only method of pulling himself together against a nameless horror which any lack of her accustomed force always suggested to him. He could not look back to the time when that horror had not played a part in his thought of her. On that never-to-be-forgotten first day of his school-life, when his little feet had raced home to her and she had caught him to her heart after their first few hours separation, his first cry had been:

"Oh, Judy, Judy! I was afraid I might not find you here!"

And that had been the unspoken fear of all his home-comings ever since. Afraid he might not find her! And this fear had Rh