E-text prepared by Peter Vickers, Juliet Sutherland, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) THE WISHING MOON By LOUISE DUTTON Author of "THE GODDESS GIRL" Illustrated by EVERETT SHINN Garden City New York DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 1916 Copyright, 1916, by Louise Dutton All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign languages, including the Scandinavian Louise Dutton COPYRIGHT, 1916, THE METROPOLITAN MAGAZINE COMPANY LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS THE WISHING MOON CHAPTER ONE A little girl sat on the worn front doorsteps of the Randall house. She sat very still and straight, with her short, white skirts fluffed daintily out on both sides, her hands tightly clasped over her thin knees, and her long, silk-stockinged legs cuddled tight together. She was bare-headed, and her short, soft hair showed silvery blonde in the fading light. Her hair was bobbed. For one miserable month it had been the only bobbed head in Green River. Her big, gray-green eyes had a fugitive, dancing light in them. The little girl had beautiful eyes. The little girl was Miss Judith Devereux Randall. She was eleven years old, and she felt happier to-night than she remembered feeling in all the eleven years of her life. The Randalls' lawn was hedged with a fringe of lilac and syringa bushes, with one great, spreading horse-chestnut tree at the corner. The house did not stand far back from the street. The little[Pg 3] girl could see a generous section of Main Street sloping past, dark already under shadowing trees. The street was empty. It was half-past six, and supper-time in Green River, but the