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The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Wishing-Ring Man, by Margaret Widdemer

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
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Title: The Wishing-Ring Man

Author: Margaret Widdemer

Posting Date: March 24, 2014 [EBook #7424]
Release Date: February, 2005
First Posted: April 28, 2003

Language: English

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*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WISHING-RING MAN ***




Produced by Eric Eldred, David Garcia, Charles Franks and
the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.






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    <h1>
      The Wishing-Ring Man
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      <b>By MARGARET WIDDEMER<br>
      <br>
       &nbsp;<br>
       &nbsp;<br>
       TO THE MEMORY OF MY OWN GRANDFATHER<br>
       &nbsp;<br>
       E. S. W.<br>
       &nbsp;<br>
       ONE OF THE DEAREST, BEST AND KINDLIEST OF MEN</b>
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        <h2>
          CONTENTS
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        <p>
          CHAPTER
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        <p>
          I. <a href="#ch01">JOY IN AMBER SATIN</a>
        </p>
        <p>
          II. <a href="#ch02">BY GRACE OF THE WISHING RING</a>
        </p>
        <p>
          III. <a href="#ch03">PHYLLIS RIDES THROUGH</a>
        </p>
        <p>
          IV. <a href="#ch04">THE RESCUE OF THE PRINCESS</a>
        </p>
        <p>
          V. <a href="#ch05">THE SHADOW OF GAIL</a>
        </p>
        <p>
          VI. <a href="#ch06">ROSE GARDENS AND MEN</a>
        </p>
        <p>
          VII. <a href="#ch07">A VERY CHARMING GENTLEMAN</a>
        </p>
        <p>
          VIII. <a href="#ch08">A FOUNTAIN IN FAIRYLAND</a>
        </p>
        <p>
          IX. <a href="#ch09">THE TANGLED WEB WE WEAVE</a>
        </p>
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          X. <a href="#ch10">CLARENCE SWOOPS DOWN</a>
        </p>
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          XI. <a href="#ch11">PIRATE COUSINS TO THE RESCUE</a>
        </p>
        <p>
          XII. <a href="#ch12">DINNER FOR FIVE</a>
        </p>
        <p>
          XIII. <a href="#ch13">THE SERIOUS BUSINESS OF
          "IOLANTHE"</a>
        </p>
        <p>
          XIV. <a href="#ch14">THE SLIGHTLY SURPRISING CLARENCE</a>
        </p>
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          XV. <a href="#ch15">THE GIFT OF THE RING</a>
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        <h2>
          CHAPTER ONE
        </h2>
        <h3>
          JOY IN AMBER SATIN
        </h3>

        <p>
          Joy Havenith had no business at all to be curled up on
          the back stairs under Great-Grand-Aunt Lucilla's picture.
          She ought to have been sliding sweetly up and down the
          long double parlors with teacups and cake, and she knew
          it. But she just didn't care.
        </p>
        <p>
          As a matter of fact, Aunt Lucilla and the other ancestors
          ought to have been in the parlors, too; but Grandfather
          had ordained differently. He had gobbled the parlor walls
          for his autographed photograph collection, and
          Grandmother, long before Joy was born or orphaned, had
          sorrowfully hung her ancestors-in-law out in the long,
          narrow hall, where they were a tight fit. Grandfather was
          one of the last survivors of the old school of American
          poetry. He was tall and slender, and very gentle and
          nice, but he always had things the way he said he wanted
          them, and he preferred his autographed friends to his
          family portraits.
        </p>
        <p>
          "It's rather a good thing it's so dark out here, Aunt
          Lucilla," said Joy to the smiling Colonial lady in the
          dark corner above her. "You mayn't much like being where
          people can't see you&#8212;but think how you'd feel, up
          garret!"
        </p>
        <p>
          Aunt Lucilla Havenith, red of lip, flashing of eye, blue
          and silver of gown, laughed on down at her
          great-grand-niece, who was holding a surreptitious little
          red candle up to talk to her. Aunt Lucilla, from all
          accounts, had had too excellent a time in her life to
          mind a little thing like being put in a back hall
          afterwards. She had been a belle from her fifteenth year,
          eloped with her true-love at sixteen, and gone on being a
          belle all the rest of her life, in the intervals of three
          husbands and ever so many children. She had managed
          everything and everybody she came across gaily all her
          life; she had been proposed to by practically the whole
          Society of the Cincinnati; and had died at eighty-three,
          a power and a charmer to the last.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I don't think you need to mind dark corners one bit,"
          said Joy, tipping the candle so that the red wax dribbled
          down on her slim fingers. "If Rochambeau and Lafayette
          and all the rest of the people in the history-books had
          made a fuss over <i>me</i>&#8212;"
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy sat down on the stairs again, on a cushion. Nobody
          used the back stairs, fine curly ones that they were, and
          Joy's cushion, which she had put there on purpose to be
          mournful on a fortnight before, was untouched since last
          time.
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy Havenith was nineteen, but you never would have known
          it. She had been told so often by her grandparents that
          she was only a child yet, that she quite believed it. No,
          not quite&#8212;but enough to make her a little shy, and
          have almost the expression and manner still of a little
          girl. She had big, black-lashed, kitten-blue eyes,
          scarlet lips, and two ropes of bronze hair that she
          wanted very badly to put up. It sounds like rather an
          exciting personality, but Joy was so young and so shy and
          so obedient that she was only like a rather small Blessed
          Damozel, or some other not-grown-up Rossetti person. She
          knew it well, because she had been told so frequently,
          and she didn't care about it at all. She leaned her head
          against the frame containing Great-Grandfather John
          Havenith at twenty, and considered Aunt Lucilla afresh.
        </p>
        <p>
          "<i>All</i> the people in the history-books!" she said
          again softly, but none the less regretfully.
        </p>
        <p>
          Ordinarily you couldn't ask for a dearer, sweeter child
          than Joy, slipping noiselessly up and down the old house
          in the city, being just as good as she knew how. She had
          always been told that she must be good and obedient and
          affectionate, and it had never been any trouble to her,
          because she was naturally that way. She lived all alone
          with Grandfather and Grandmother and Elizabeth the cook,
          and did just what Grandfather told her to. So did
          everybody else. It wasn't that he was cross, or anything
          like that. He was more charming than most people. But he
          was a Personage; and if you live with a Personage your
          own personality gets a bit pushed into the background,
          without its being anybody's fault at all.
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy had been perfectly happy, as far as she knew, until
          two weeks before. You can be, you know, if no one tells
          you you aren't, especially when you're young.
        </p>
        <p>
          Grandfather had Afternoons every two weeks, when he sat
          at the end of the parlors in a big chair and received his
          admirers. In his youth he had looked like Shelley, and he
          was still tall and slender and clean-shaven, with
          straight, abundant white hair, and black brows and lashes
          like Joy's. And he had what is called immense personal
          charm, and loved his little grand-daughter devotedly. He
          simply didn't know she was grown up. For the matter of
          that, neither did Joy herself until....
        </p>
        <p>
          You see, it had been very much like life in a fairy-book.
          She never remembered anything but the old house and the
          old people, and everybody literary coming and going and
          telling her how wonderful Grandfather was: and nothing
          that concerned <i>her</i> very closely, at all. She
          scarcely knew how to treat anybody, except respectfully,
          because they had always all been so much older than she
          was. It was like living in an enchanted tower. Enchanted
          towers are very pleasant places, because you can have all
          sorts of dreams in them. Joy hadn't missed anything much,
          till the thing that happened at the reception.
        </p>
        <p>
          Grandfather, in his frock-coat and stock, his white
          fluffy hair flying, had been moving up and down the
          autographed parlors with his usual dominant charm. Little
          gray Grandmother, in her gathered, fichued black silk,
          was putting lemon or cream in teacups, as people should
          prefer. Joy had been walking up and down by Grandfather,
          as he liked to have her on reception days. They dressed
          her, on these days, in lovely strange frocks, cut
          medieval fashion, with the ropes of bronze-gold hair
          trailing down either side of her vividly colored,
          incongruously dreamy little face. According to the way
          Joy figured it out, Grandfather had her dress that way,
          the better to write poetry about her. She didn't mind.
          The truth was, she lived so far inside herself that she
          didn't care. It was so much easier to do quickly what you
          were told, and then go back to the place where you played
          by yourself&#8212;a fairy country.
        </p>
        <p>
          This particular reception day was a damp, heavily hot
          afternoon in early September. There weren't many people
          back in the city yet, but Grandfather always began his
          "days" as early as he could. He was fond of having people
          around him. And even on this very sticky day people did
          come. Only two of them were young.
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy didn't know any young people. Some day she intended
          to. In her dream-world she had friends who were young and
          gay and lovely and talked to her, and to whom she talked
          back gaily; but it never occurred to her to expect
          anything like that to really happen right now. The young
          men and young girls she sometimes crossed she admired
          quite happily and remotely, as if they were people from
          another planet.
        </p>
        <p>
          It was so that she watched these two people that were
          young. She liked watching them so much that presently she
          escaped from Grandfather, and slid behind the
          window-curtains, to be closer to them.
        </p>
        <p>
          "They feel so lovely and happy," said Joy, warming her
          little hands at their happiness.
        </p>
        <p>
          They were lovers; anybody could see that. And they
          weren't poets or anything of the sort; you could see
          that, too. <i>She</i> was in a little trim white pongee
          street suit, with a close little hat above a little rosy,
          powdered, cheerful face. <i>He</i> had rather heavy
          shoulders and a shock of carefully brushed straight light
          hair, and looked about one year out of Harvard. They
          didn't at all belong with the middle-aged roomful. As a
          matter of fact, <i>her</i> mother knew Mrs. Havenith a
          little, and so they had dashed in here to save her suit
          from the rain. They were sitting and smiling at each
          other against a background of Mark Twain's life-sized
          head in a broad gilt frame. They faced another life-sized
          head of Browning, also autographed, but they liked
          looking at each other better.
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy, from her hiding-place, could feel the current of
          their happiness and youth, and it made her very warm in
          her soul, and comfortable. She listened to them quite
          unashamedly, as she would have to a nice play.
        </p>
        <p>
          "She has wonderful hair, hasn't she?" she heard the girl
          say.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Not as lovely as my girl's," the man answered softly.
        </p>
        <p>
          His girl laughed, a little low pleased laugh. "But you
          can't see mine hanging down that way, like a picture,"
          she fenced.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I'm glad you don't wear it that way," he insisted. "I
          like you to look like a real girl, not a movie star or an
          advertisement."
        </p>
        <p>
          "Do you suppose she likes it?" asked the girl. "I'd go
          crazy if I had to be like that&#8212;why, she isn't as
          old as I am! I suppose they write poems about her,
          though," she added, as if that might be a compensation.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Oh, if <i>that's</i> all&#8212;" began the man, and they
          both laughed happily, as at a wonderful joke.
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy, frozen behind her curtains, heard a little rustle,
          as if he was taking her hand, and her protest&#8212;
        </p>
        <p>
          "Oh, Dicky, don't&#8212;they'll see us!"
        </p>
        <p>
          "Not a bit," said he cheerfully. "They're all looking at
          dear Grandpapa, the Angora Poet&#8212;oldest in captivity
          to be reading his own sonnets. Bet you it's about the
          little girl, poor kid&#8212;he seems to be looking around
          for her."
        </p>
        <p>
          "Sonnets? Oh, let's go; the rain's stopped," whispered
          the girl. "You were awfully extravagant this afternoon.
          Now we're going to take a nice, inexpensive walk up
          home."
        </p>
        <p>
          She heard him protesting a little at that; then they slid
          out softly, while poor Joy sat behind her curtains,
          moveless and aghast.... Oh, was this what she was like
          ... to real, happy, gay people her own age? And she had
          liked the girl so, and been so glad she had her lover,
          and that they loved each other! And Grandfather.... She
          had never thought whether he wrote poetry about her or
          not. She had just taken it for granted. People had to
          write about something, and it was just as apt to be you
          as a public crisis or a sunset, or anything else useful
          for the purpose. But they had <i>laughed</i> about it....
          Oh, she did hope it wouldn't be a poem about her that he
          was going to read! She felt she couldn't stand it, if it
          were. She knew that when she was the subject she was
          expected to be in sight, as a sort of outward and visible
          sign.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I won't go out into the room!" she said defiantly. "He
          doesn't expect the sunsets and public crises to stand up
          and be looked at when he reads about them!"
        </p>
        <p>
          So she stayed just where she was. As she stayed,
          incongruously, a joke out of an old Punch came into her
          head&#8212;not at all an esthetic one. It was a picture
          of a furious woman brandishing a broom, while the tips of
          her husband's boots showed under the bed-foot. The
          husband was saying: "Ye may poke at me and ye may
          threaten me, but ye canna break my manly sperrit. I
          willna come out fra under the bed!"
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy laughed a little, even in her sad state of mind, at
          the remembrance. "I willna come out fra under the bed,
          either," she decided rather shakily, curling her flowing
          yellow satin closer about her, and making herself quite
          flat against the window-frame. She tried to stop her ears
          and not listen, so she wouldn't know whether the poetry
          was about her or not. But she had fatally sharp ears, and
          Grandfather always practised on her and Grandmother,
          adoringly silent at the breakfast table. She would know
          the poems apart if she only caught a half word.... And it
          <i>was</i> about her.
        </p>
        <p>
          Grandfather's beautiful voice carried as well as it ever
          had. No matter how many fingers you had in how many ears,
          you heard it just the same. And the poem's name was, "To
          Joy in Amber Satin."
        </p>
        <p>
          It was doubtless a very lovely poem, and she'd been as
          pleased as anybody when it had sold to the <i>Century</i>
          for fifty dollars last week. But it suddenly came over
          Joy that she wasn't a crisis, nor yet a sunset, and that
          people oughtn't to write poetry to their granddaughters,
          and then have them wear the clothes that were written
          about right in the room with the poem. She knew, too,
          that as soon as it was over, purry, nice, prettily
          dressed ladies would come and hunt her out and use
          admiring adjectives on her. She had never minded it
          before; she had taken it as a well-behaved little dog
          would; as a curious thing people did, which meant that
          they wanted to be nice. With this new viewpoint drenching
          her like cold water it didn't seem nice a bit.
        </p>
        <p>
          She pulled the curtain stealthily apart and peeped out.
          Everything seemed fairly all right. Between her and
          Grandfather, a useful shelter, spread the massive
          purple-velvet back of Mrs. Harmsworth-Jones, who always
          came, and always asked afterwards, "And how is our little
          Joy-Flower today?" She was as good as she could be, but
          she was one more of the things Joy felt as if she
          couldn't stand right now.
        </p>
        <p>
          She tiptoed very carefully indeed past Mrs.
          Harmsworth-Jones, and past Grandfather's bronze bust at
          twenty-five, and almost past the framed autograph letter
          of Whittier, on the easel. That was as far as she got,
          because there was a nail sticking out at the side of the
          Whittier frame, and it caught her by one of the straps
          that held her satin panels together across the violet
          chiffon sidepieces. The framed letter came down with a
          clatter, spoiling the last line of the poem forever; and
          Joy was caught, for of course every one turned around to
          see what the noise was.
        </p>
        <p>
          Grandfather, who had great presence of mind, read the
          last four lines of the poem over again slowly, directly
          at Joy, who stood like a wistful little figure out of
          Fairyland, pressed back against the easel; her frightened
          eyes wide, her golden-bronze braids glimmering in the
          firelight. It seemed to her that the delivery of those
          last four lines was endless.
        </p>
        <p>
          Yet they were done at last, and still Joy stood
          motionless. She really did not know how to run away,
          because she had never done it.
        </p>
        <p>
          Before she moved Grandfather had finished his reading and
          the people, who had been sitting and standing raptly
          about, began to move; all fluttering dresses and
          perfumes, and little laughters, and pleasant little
          speeches to each other. It was a part of the reception
          that Joy usually looked forward to happily. She was just
          pulling herself together for flight when Mrs.
          Harmsworth-Jones, jingling, purple-upholstered and
          smiling, bore down on her.
        </p>
        <p>
          "How is our dear little Joy-Flower this afternoon?" she
          asked as inevitably as Fate, patting Joy's slim bare arm
          with one plump, gloved hand, and beaming. "Oh, dearest
          child, <i>do</i> you realize the privilege you have?
          Think of actually living so close to a poet that you
          become a part of his inspiration. Dear little Joy&#8212;"
        </p>
        <p>
          Mrs. Harmsworth-Jones was one of the nicest, kindest,
          fattest people that ever lived, and furthermore, she had
          taken Joy, all by herself, to a performance of "Pelleas
          and Melisande" only the spring before. And though Joy had
          thought privately that the people sang too long at a time
          on one note, and wished Melisande was less
          athletic-looking, she had liked it very much, and felt
          obliged to the lady ever since. So she really shouldn't
          have behaved the way she did&#8212;if it hadn't been for
          the lovers, she doubtless wouldn't have. As it was, she
          braced herself against the easel.
        </p>
        <p>
          "It isn't a privilege a bit," she said defiantly, out of
          a clear sky. "It isn't half as much fun as being the kind
          of girl everybody else is. I hate wearing moving-picture
          clothes" [not even in her excitement could Joy bring
          herself to say "movies"] "and I hate never knowing girls
          and men my own age, and I hate having poems written to me
          worse than anything at <i>all</i>!"
        </p>
        <p>
          Poor Mrs. Harmsworth-Jones! She hadn't done a thing. Her
          own girls went to fashionable schools and attended
          sub-deb dances by the score until they came out, which
          they did at eighteen each like clockwork. She couldn't
          have been expected to see to it for somebody else's girl,
          too. Her getting the full blast of it was a quite
          fortuitous affair, and Joy always felt, looking back
          afterwards on her explosion, that it had been hard on the
          lady&#8212;who was frightened by it to the point of
          silence. It must have been very much as if the sedate
          full-length of Mr. Shakspere, over in the corner and
          <i>not</i> autographed, had opened its mouth and begun to
          recite limericks.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Why&#8212;why!" she said; and that was all she was
          capable of saying for the moment. Joy, terrified herself
          at her deed, turned and fled.
        </p>
        <p>
          What happened between Mrs. Jones and Grandfather she
          never knew, and never asked. She never halted in her
          flight till she was safe in her own little eyrie
          upstairs.
        </p>
        <p>
          There she stopped before her dresser mirror, and looked
          at the flushed, breathless girl in the glass.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I wonder," Joy said aloud, "what really is the
          difference between me and other people?"
        </p>
        <p>
          She stared into the glass to see if she couldn't find
          out, leaning her hands down on the dresser-top. But the
          pretty white-enamel-framed mirror showed her just the
          same Joy as ever. Her heavy bronze-gold braids swung
          forward, and their ends coiled down on the dresser-top.
          Between them her little pointed face looked straight at
          her, blue-eyed, red-lipped, and serious. Its owner eyed
          it perplexedly awhile, then gave up the riddle.
        </p>
        <p>
          "If you look like pictures and poetry you <i>do</i>, and
          that's all there is to it. I suppose living with
          Grandfather's had an effect on me... I wonder..." Joy
          still stared steadily into the glass&#8212;"I wonder if
          having somebody in love with me would make a difference.
          It's the only thing Grandfather's ever said he was
          willing to have happen to me. He's always talking about
          'I would give you up willingly to the first breath of
          true love....' But there's never anybody comes to his
          parties you could love with a pair of tongs... I wonder
          if he <i>would?</i> It would have to be love at first
          sight, too, I suppose. He doesn't think much of any other
          kind of love.... But I'd be dreadfully frightened of
          him.... I hope he'd have blond curly hair!"
        </p>
        <p>
          She lifted herself from her leaning position, and went
          and curled up on the side of the bed, the better to
          think.
        </p>
        <p>
          "There's no use wondering about a lover," she decided.
          "Lovers <i>never</i> come to hear Grandfather read, not
          unless they come in pairs to get out of the rain, like
          the animals in the ark.... Anyway I don't think I'd want
          the one today, even if he hadn't been a pair. But a nice
          fresh one that didn't belong to anybody else...."
        </p>
        <p>
          Grandmother, released at last from finding out what
          people wanted in their tea, and giving it to them,
          hurried into the room at this point, and was very much
          relieved to find Joy perfectly well to all appearances,
          and sitting quietly on the side of the bed gazing off
          into space.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Darling, were you ill?" she panted, sitting down by her.
          "Your grandfather was quite disturbed over it, and I was
          terribly frightened. We knew something must have
          happened. What was it, lambie? Where do you feel badly?"
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy looked away from the wall, at her grandmother's kind,
          anxious, wrinkled little face under the lace lappets.
          Grandfather liked Grandmother to wear caps, so she did
          it; also fichus and full-skirted silks, whether such were
          in fashion or no.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I didn't feel ill one bit," explained Joy deliberately.
          "Only I'm tired of being a decoration. I want to be like
          other people... I don't want to wear any more clothes
          like paintings, or ever have any more poetry written to
          me. I&#8212;oh, Grandmother, everything's going on and
          going on, and none of it's happening to <i>me!</i>" She
          looked at her grandmother appealingly. "And it feels as
          if it wouldn't ever!"
        </p>
        <p>
          But Grandmother didn't seem to understand a bit. And yet
          she must have been young once&#8212;wasn't there that
          poem of Grandfather's, "To Myrtilla at Seventeen," to
          prove it? The one beginning "Sweetheart, whose shadowed
          hair!" Why, he must have&#8212;yes, he spoke of it in the
          poem&#8212;Grandfather must have held Grandmother's hand,
          like the Dicky-lover today, and even kissed her because
          he wanted to, not because it was nine in the morning or
          ten at night. Those were the times he kissed her now. Of
          one thing Joy was certain, Grandmother had never told
          Grandfather he must stop. She wouldn't have dared.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Dear, would you like a hot-water bottle, and your supper
          in bed?" inquired Grandmother, breaking in on these
          meditations.... Oh, it was a long time since Grandmother
          had been Myrtilla at seventeen! Joy looked at her
          wistfully once more.
        </p>
        <p>
          "No, thank you, Grandmother," she said decidedly. "I feel
          very well, thank you. I'll be down to supper as soon as
          I've changed my frock."
        </p>
        <p>
          She felt as if getting off the actual clothes that were
          in the poem would be escaping from it a little, and
          perhaps drawing a little nearer the having of real things
          happen to her. Grandmother, nearly reassured, patted
          Joy's little slim hand with her own little wrinkled one,
          and trotted downstairs to tell Grandfather happily that
          Joy would soon be down.
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy, left alone, pulled off the amber robe, and stood
          before the wardrobe in her silk slip, pushing along the
          hangers to try and find something practical. It was
          pretty hard. All her gowns were lovely loose or draped or
          girdled things: you could have costumed the whole cast of
          two Maeterlinck plays from just those hangers. She was
          very tired, suddenly, of all of them. At last she found a
          green dress that was the delight of her life, even if it
          was picturesque, because it was such a nice, cheerful
          color, put it on, and went down. She had tried to fasten
          her hair up as the lover-girl's had been fastened, but
          hers was so curly and heavy and alive and long that it
          couldn't be done. She strapped it in desperation around
          her head, wished she had some powder, and dashed down the
          long flights of stairs just in time to save herself from
          a second summons. She wasn't quite satisfied with her own
          general effect, but it would do for a beginning.
        </p>
        <p>
          So, dreamer as she still was, nevertheless the only thing
          alight and alive in the old house, she ran down the
          staircases, past the statues that stood severely in the
          niches at the head of each flight, down finally to the
          basement dining-room where the three old people, her
          grandfather and grandmother and old Elizabeth, were
          waiting for her.
        </p>
        <p>
          They sat at either end of the old mahogany
          table&#8212;that had been Lucilla Havenith's,
          too&#8212;with supper, plus the sandwiches left over from
          the tea, waiting untouched till Joy should come. By the
          way all three stopped short when she came in, Joy was
          sure they had been wondering what was the matter with
          her. She sank into her own chair, and took one of the
          walnut sandwiches which had been spared by the reception
          people. She was still hungry, and proceeded to eat it, at
          which Mrs. and Mr. Havenith looked happier.
        </p>
        <p>
          "You see, Alton, she has an appetite," said Grandmother
          thankfully.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Yes, I am glad to see she has," answered Grandfather, as
          if the circumstance was gratifying to him also. "I am
          very much relieved."
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy felt guilty. When your grandparents were as fond as
          all that of you, you really hadn't any right to feel as
          if you wanted anything else. She straightened up and
          smiled gallantly at them, and took another sandwich by
          way of proving her health.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I think I'm all right," she said.
        </p>
        <p>
          "You were overtired," said Grandmother
          solicitously&#8212;Grandmother, who had cut all the
          sandwiches, which Joy had only buttered! "The day's been
          oppressive."
        </p>
        <p>
          So she passed Joy some more of the walnut sandwiches, and
          smiled to see that they were being eaten.
        </p>
        <p>
          "But I am not satisfied, yet," said Grandfather. If
          Grandfather had only let well enough&#8212;and young
          girls' whimsies&#8212;alone, Joy wouldn't have been
          tempted. "What made you rush out that way, Joy&#8212;just
          as I was finishing the last stanza of the lyric, 'To Joy
          in Amber Satin,' too? You couldn't have chosen a worse
          possible moment. You nearly spoiled the effect."
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy threw her head back defiantly. She knew that if
          Grandmother didn't understand her appeal, certainly
          Grandfather wouldn't.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Grandfather," she said, "do you remember the anecdote
          you always tell to small groups of people, the one about
          the farmer who used to meet your friend, James Russell
          Lowell, on his afternoon walk every day, and say, 'Waal,
          Mr. Lowell, had a poem yet today?' <i>I</i> had a poem!"
        </p>
        <p>
          It was a most amazing fish story. Joy hadn't had any such
          thing as a poem: nothing at all but a fit of rebellion.
          But if she wanted to check her grandfather's inquiries
          she had taken the most perfect way known to civilization.
          He couldn't possibly blame her for bolting if the poem
          had to be put down. Nor even for being impolite to Mrs.
          Harmsworth-Jones.
        </p>
        <p>
          "You always say, 'The Muse must out,'" continued Joy
          defiantly. "Or would you rather I didn't have any Muse?"
        </p>
        <p>
          There was only one thing for Grandfather to say, and he
          said it.
        </p>
        <p>
          "My dear, if you are really intending to do serious work
          along that line nothing should prevent you. I quite
          understand."
        </p>
        <p>
          Grandmother looked over at her little girl with a new
          respect&#8212;and perhaps a new apprehension. One poet in
          a family is supposed to be enough, as a rule. And Joy had
          always been such a good, dear child to manage.
        </p>
        <p>
          So no more was said. But Joy wondered if she hadn't let
          herself in for something dreadful. Grandfather would
          certainly expect to see that poem some day!
        </p>
        <p>
          Nothing more was said about it for the two weeks that led
          to Grandfather's next Afternoon. Joy was delighted to
          find that her Muse wasn't asked for, and her grandparents
          may have been rather pleased at her continuing to behave
          as she always had, instead of saying curious things about
          wanting to be like other people. She continued to wear
          her picture-frocks and do as she was told. Her own
          feelings were that she had been naughty, but that she was
          rather glad of it.
        </p>
        <p>
          And so it was that when the reception day came around
          again, Joy helped with the sandwiches and sliced the
          lemons and piled up the little cakes and dressed herself
          prettily&#8212;and then went and hid at the foot of the
          back stairs, with Aunt Lucilla for a companion.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I hope I shall behave if somebody finds me, and tells me
          what a privilege it is to be me," said Joy; "but I doubt
          it. Because it isn't. It isn't one bit."
        </p>
        <p>
          "What isn't?" demanded a man's voice interestedly.
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p><a name="ch02"><!--Marker--></a>
        <h2>
          CHAPTER TWO
        </h2>
        <h3>
          BY GRACE OF THE WISHING RING
        </h3>
        <p>
          Joy turned her head to look. She was quite sure that the
          speaker couldn't see her very well, but she could see
          him, or the top of him, perfectly, because he was
          standing in the crack of a door that gave on to the back
          hall; a door few people remembered existed, as a picture
          hung on it, and it gave no impression of ever being used.
          He was young and broad-shouldered and sure-looking,
          little as she could see of him. She could see his face as
          far down as the eyes, and that was all. They were
          pleasant, steel-colored eyes, very amused and direct, and
          his hair, in the light of the old-fashioned chandelier
          behind him, glittered, fair and a little curlier than he
          evidently approved of.
        </p>
        <p>
          He slipped entirely through the door; at the same moment
          Joy blew out the candle she had been holding up to Aunt
          Lucilla. Then she laughed, a little shy, pretty laugh.
          She wished she could light it again, to look at him, but
          she remembered that if she did that he might think she
          <i>did</i> want to look at him.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I'm so glad you've come!" she almost said. He seemed
          like some one she had been waiting for a long while, some
          way, instead of the usual stranger you had to get used
          to. There was such a breath of freshness and courage and
          cheer in just the few words he had spoken and the little
          laugh they were borne on, that Joy felt irrationally what
          a nice world it was. Then she remembered to reply to what
          he had said.
        </p>
        <p>
          "It isn't a privilege, being me," she explained from her
          shadows.
        </p>
        <p>
          He looked over to where her voice came from, but there
          wasn't anything visible except a little dark heap on the
          last three stairs.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I could tell better if I could see you," he stated
          pleasantly. "Don't you want to take the hint?"
        </p>
        <p>
          But Joy, mindful of the hanging braids that would
          certainly make him think she was a little girl, would not
          take it at all. She snuggled against the wall.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Oh, you can see me any time," she said carelessly, "but
          you can scarcely ever get to talk to me. At least, I
          heard somebody say so last month."
        </p>
        <p>
          She felt quite like somebody else, a gay, teasing,
          careless sort of real girl, talking to him here in the
          dark. She was sure she wouldn't if the lights were on.
          She could talk to him as if he were some one out of a
          book or a story, so long as he didn't know she looked
          like a book-person or a play-person herself.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Well, anyway, do let me stay here," he begged, doing it.
          "For the last hour I haven't felt as if it was much of a
          privilege to be me, either. Do you know that feeling of
          terrible personal unworthiness you get at a party where
          everybody knows everybody else and nobody knows you? I
          feel like precisely the kind of long, wiggly worm the
          little boy ate."
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy felt very sorry for him; because if she didn't know
          that feeling she knew one to match it; having everybody
          know her and nobody think of playing with her.... This
          man was playing with her for a minute, anyway.
        </p>
        <p>
          "And I'll always have him to remember," she thought
          happily, "even when I'm an old, old lady, writing
          reminiscences of Grandfather, the way they all say I
          should ..." She went off into a little daydream of
          writing all this down in her reminiscences, and having
          him&#8212;old, too, then&#8212;write back to her and say
          that he, also, had always remembered the time happily,
          and wondered who she was.... Then she answered him.
        </p>
        <p>
          "You know me, anyway&#8212;don't say you know no one,"
          she told him. "Anyway, I'm glad you're talking to me. I'm
          Joy."
        </p>
        <p>
          He laughed again, leaning against the door-frame in the
          thread of light.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Then you're something I've been looking for a long
          time," he said. "I've had friends and success, and good
          times&#8212;but I've never found Joy till now."
        </p>
        <p>
          She knew, of course, that he was just being pleasant
          about her name, as people were sometimes. But it sounded
          very lovely to remember.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I'm Alton Havenith's granddaughter," she explained
          sedately. And, with a sudden desire that he should know
          the worst, she added, "I'm the one he writes poetry to."
        </p>
        <p>
          He must have caught a note of regret in her
          voice&#8212;oh, he was a very wonderful person! for what
          he said wasn't a bit what Joy expected even him to
          say&#8212;the "How lovely for you!" that she was braced
          for.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Why, you poor kiddie!" said he, "and you ought to be
          playing tag or tennis or something. I can't see much of
          you, except one braid that the light's on; but you're
          just a little thing, aren't you?"
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy did not answer. She looked up at him, as the crack of
          light widened behind him, and showed him clearly for a
          moment. He was so very handsome, standing there with his
          brows contracted in a little frown over his pleasant gray
          eyes, that Joy felt her heart do a queer thing, as if it
          turned over.
        </p>
        <p>
          He came a little nearer her, and sat down on the floor,
          below her, quite naturally.
        </p>
        <p>
          "And you're awfully lonesome, and you wish something
          would happen?" said his kind voice. It was a lovely
          voice, Joy thought. It was authoritative, yet with a
          little caressing note in it, as if he would look after
          you very carefully&#8212;and you would love it.
        </p>
        <p>
          "How did you know?" she asked.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Oh, I just could tell," he said, and it seemed a
          perfectly clear explanation. "Well, don't forget that
          there's lots of time yet. You just keep on believing
          things <i>will</i> happen&#8212;don't lose
          heart&#8212;and maybe they will."
        </p>
        <p>
          Somehow, the way he said it, Joy was sure they would.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Like a wishing ring?" she asked eagerly.
        </p>
        <p>
          He laughed.
        </p>
        <p>
          "You <i>are</i> a kiddie. Why, yes, like a wishing ring,
          if you like."
        </p>
        <p>
          Before Joy could answer there came a brisk voice from the
          door.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Oh, this is where you've hidden! You may be decorative,
          Jack, but as an escort I've known nephews more useful."
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy looked up and saw a tiny elderly lady, quite a new
          one, in the doorway.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Good-by, Joy," he said in too low a voice for the old
          lady to hear. "I'm glad we've met&#8212;I can't say I'm
          glad to have seen you, because I haven't, you know. But
          thanks for a human five minutes&#8212;and keep hoping."
        </p>
        <p>
          He sprang lightly to his feet, opened the door, shut the
          door&#8212;was gone, and Joy was alone in the dark again.
        </p>
        <p>
          She smiled up at Aunt Lucilla unseeingly.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Not even Lafayette could have been as kind as that," she
          said proudly, and leaned happily against the wall again.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Why, Joy, dear, don't you want to come in and see the
          people?" Grandmother was asking her solicitously, bending
          over her. "You aren't sick again, are you?"
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy sprang up with a little laugh.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Not a bit," she assured her. "I'm especially all right.
          Why, yes&#8212;I'll come in if you want me, of course.
          The people don't matter."
        </p>
        <p>
          She threaded her way, behind Grandmother, up and down the
          parlors for the next hour, quite happy. She'd had such a
          wonderful five minutes in the back hall&#8212;why, what
          difference did it make if Mr. James Arthur Gosport
          captured her and told her about his ideas on universal
          brotherhood? She didn't have to listen specially, because
          she knew just what he was going to tell: the story about
          how he went out from his parlor-car and hunted through
          the day-coach to find a brake-man, on purpose to tell him
          how fond he was of him. And how the brakeman's eyes
          filled up with tears at being loved, and how Mr. Gosport
          had to hurry back to his Pullman in order not to go to
          pieces himself.
        </p>
        <p>
          When Mr. Gosport told this tale&#8212;it was one he used
          in his lectures, and it always went splendidly&#8212;Joy
          usually had to keep herself from wondering why he didn't
          go to pieces anyhow; he was so long and loosely built
          you'd think he was merely pinned together. But this
          afternoon she smiled at him so brightly that he liked the
          way he told the story better than ever. She was really
          thinking&#8212;
        </p>
        <p>
          "The man she called Jack is built ever so much better
          than Mr. Gosport is. <i>He</i> wouldn't just cry over a
          brakeman. He'd give him some money or...."
        </p>
        <p>
          "It is very wonderful to feel that we are all brothers,
          and that so little a thing as bringing it home to a
          train-hand could move him so profoundly," finished Mr.
          Gosport, cheered by the success of his anecdote. "I make
          it a point never to neglect such little things&#8212;"
        </p>
        <p>
          He was left with a period in mid-air, for Joy, with a
          flurry of skirts, was running toward her grandfather. She
          didn't care a bit whether men were all brothers or second
          cousins; she thought maybe Grandfather would know the
          real name of the man she had talked to, the one besides
          Jack.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Grandfather, what was the name of the man with curly,
          fair hair and big gray eyes, the one who had a little old
          lady with him?" she demanded breathlessly, clinging to
          her grandfather's arm and interrupting him ruthlessly in
          the middle of something he was saying to somebody.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I haven't the faintest recollection," said Grandfather;
          and Grandmother whispered:
        </p>
        <p>
          "Come away, dear. The lady with him just asked him
          whether he wrote under his own name or a nom-de-plume,
          and you know how irritating that is."
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy came obediently away. After all, it didn't matter
          about Jack's other name. She knew perfectly well that she
          should see him again. Everything was bound to go
          happily.... And till she saw him again, she had him to
          remember.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I have something pleasant to tell you, dear," said
          Grandmother, patting the arm she still held.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Yes, Grandmother?" she asked, smiling. An hour or so
          before she would have been wild to know what it was, but
          now she was only serenely glad that it did exist. She
          knew perfectly well that things had begun to happen. And
          now they would go on and on and on till the fairy-tale
          ending came. She knew that, too. Somehow, the shut-out
          feeling was all gone, ever since the gray-eyed man had
          sat at her feet in the hall and given her the wishing
          ring. The curtain was up&#8212;or, rather, the door was
          open into things, just as he'd pushed open the door from
          her little dark dream-place, the door that had always
          been there, but nobody'd thought to use. Of course,
          things were going to happen&#8212;lovely ones!
        </p>
        <p>
          "I know I'll like it," she ended, with a happy little
          laugh.
        </p>
        <p>
          "You seem better already, dear," said her grandmother
          happily, and began: "We have been talking about your
          health, and we have decided that you need a change, and
          some young life. So we are going up to an inn in the
          Maine woods for a month or more. There's boating there,
          and&#8212;and games, I understand, and there's a literary
          colony near, so there'll be people for your grandfather.
          He thinks he may go on holding small Afternoons. It's a
          cottage inn."
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy did not know then what a cottage inn was, but neither
          did she care. She clasped her hands happily over the
          invisible wishing ring.
        </p>
        <p>
          As Joy helped Grandmother pack, the next week, she
          wondered a little about clothes. She did not worry now,
          because she had a conviction that if she only knew what
          she wanted, and hoped as Jack had told her, she could
          hope things straight to her. There was a gray taffeta in
          a window uptown, together with a big gray chiffon hat, a
          little pair of glossy gray strapped slippers, and filmy
          gray silk stockings. And the hat, instead of having pink
          roses on it, as you'd think a normal hat would, by the
          mercy of Providence had deep yellow roses, exactly the
          color Joy knew she could wear if she got the chance. The
          chance, to be sure, was remote. She did not have an
          allowance, just money when she asked for it; and her fall
          wardrobe had been bought only a few weeks before. Besides
          the amber satin that the poetry was about, there were
          three other frocks, lovely, artistic, but, Joy was
          certain, no mortal use for tennis. She didn't know how to
          play tennis, but she intended to, just the same.
        </p>
        <p>
          Now, how, with just seven dollars left from your last
          birthday's ten, could you buy a silk frock, with a hat
          and shoes and stockings to match? The answer seemed to be
          that you couldn't, but Joy did not want to look at it
          that way yet. And as she gazed around her bedroom in
          search of inspiration, her eyes fell on an illuminated
          sentiment over her bureau. It had been sent Grandfather
          by a Western admirer who had done it by hand herself in
          three colors, not counting the gilt. Grandfather had one
          already, so Joy had helped herself to this, because it
          matched the color of her room. She had never read it
          before, but, reading it today, it impressed her as
          excellent advice to the seeker after fine raiment.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Let the farmer," Mr. Emerson had said, "give his corn,
          the miner a gem, the painter his picture, the poet his
          poem." Joy did not stop to wonder (for the Western lady
          had left it out) on just what principle these
          contributions were being made. She didn't care.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Now, that's the way people earn money," said she
          practically, and tried to think what she could do.
        </p>
        <p>
          Cook&#8212;she could make very good things to eat, but
          Grandmother would have to know about that, and, besides,
          it wouldn't be a thing they would approve of.
          Sewing&#8212;no, you couldn't get much out of that. She
          could recite poetry and be decorative, but she gave a
          little shiver at the thought. She played and sang as
          Grandmother had taught her&#8212;harp and piano&#8212;and
          spoke Grandmother's French. She couldn't do much with
          <i>them</i>.... Oh, she was just decorative! And as she
          prepared to be vexed at the idea, suddenly the motto
          caught her eye again.
        </p>
        <p>
          "It's a perfectly impossible idea from <i>their</i>
          standpoint," said Joy, with the light of battle in her
          eye for almost the first time in her life, "but I simply
          have to have that gray dress."
        </p>
        <p>
          She rose and fished the amber satin out of her trunk. She
          put it on, put her long coat over it, packed her next
          most picturesque frock in a bag, fastened on a hat, and
          walked out the front door.
        </p>
        <p>
          Just three blocks away lived a dear, elderly mural
          decorator who was always telling her how he wished he had
          her for a model. She knew he was making studies now for
          about a half-mile of walls in a new, rich statehouse
          somewhere far away.
        </p>
        <p>
          She should have been frightened at this, her first
          adventure, but she wasn't. She found her heart getting
          gayer and lighter as she ran down the steps with her
          little bag. It was the kind of a day when all the
          policemen and street-sweepers and old women selling
          shoe-laces look at you pleasantly, and make cheerful
          remarks to you. Even the conductor whose street-car she
          didn't take smiled pleasantly at her after stopping his
          car by mistake. It was as kind-hearted and
          pleasant-minded a worldful of people as Joy had ever met,
          and she was singing under her breath with happiness as
          she ran up the steps leading to Mr. Morrow's studio.
          There wasn't any particular excuse for her being so
          light-hearted, excepting that the street-people had been
          so friendly minded, and there was such a dear little
          breeze with a country smoke-scent on it, and that
          somewhere in the world was a tall man with fair hair and
          a kind, authoritative voice, who had said wonderful
          things to her&#8212;a man she would meet again some day,
          when she was charming and worldly and dressed in a
          tailor-made suit.
        </p>
        <p>
          Mr. and Mrs. Morrow were artists both; and she found
          them, blouse-swathed and disheveled, doing charcoal
          studies in a corner of the room apiece. Mrs. Morrow
          kissed Joy, arching over her so that the smudges on her
          pinafore wouldn't be transferred. Mr. Morrow came out of
          his corner and shook hands with her with less care, so
          that his smudges did come off on her. Then they both
          listened to her story with the same kindness and interest
          every one else had shown her that morning.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I can sit still or stand still as long as ever you want
          me to," Joy explained. "And you said yourself I was
          decorative, Mr. Morrow; you know you did!"
        </p>
        <p>
          "I did, indeed," Mr. Morrow answered promptly, while Mrs.
          Morrow asked some more questions.
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy answered them.
        </p>
        <p>
          "And I would be able to earn enough money for all those
          things in the window by Friday?" she ended.
        </p>
        <p>
          The Morrows smiled and glanced at each other. Joy did not
          know, till some months later, why they smiled. Then they
          spoke, nearly together.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Yes, indeed, dear child&#8212;quite enough!"
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy was reassured, because, though she didn't know
          model-prices, she had been afraid that it wouldn't be.
        </p>
        <p>
          Then they gave her some purple draperies&#8212;the satins
          wouldn't do, after all, it appeared&#8212;and arranged
          her in them. And, to anticipate, when Joy went out to
          that statehouse, the next year, she was able to pick out
          her own bronze-gold braids and purple royalties all up
          and down the frieze.
        </p>
        <p>
          "By Jove, she <i>is</i> a good model!" said Mr. Morrow
          after a couple of hours, pulling at his pointed gray
          beard and speaking enthusiastically in his soft
          artist-voice.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Splendid!" said untidy, handsome Mrs. Morrow, sitting
          down on the model-throne to view her own work the better.
          "But she must be ready to drop, aren't you, Joy, dear?
          You aren't used to it."
        </p>
        <p>
          But Joy shook her head.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I'm not tired a bit," she said truthfully. "I just let
          go all over and stay that way. It isn't sitting any
          stiller than I do lots of days, when Grandfather has me
          stay close by him, and keep very still so he can write.
          Why, it seems downright sinful," she went on earnestly,
          "to earn beautiful gray clothes by just sitting still!
          But you would have to have somebody, anyway, wouldn't
          you?"
        </p>
        <p>
          "Of course we would!" said Mrs. Morrow, picking up her
          crayon again. "Indeed, we have to have two most of the
          time."
        </p>
        <p>
          They all kept very quiet for a while after that, Joy
          sitting still in her robes of state, a slim young Justice
          presiding over an as yet undrawn Senate, and the Morrows
          working hard at her. She had been posing for another half
          hour, when there came a whirlwind of steps up the stairs,
          and the door banged open.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Mrs. Morrow, can you let me have some fixative?" called
          a voice; and Joy moved her eyes cautiously, and saw a
          pretty, panting girl in the doorway. She looked like an
          artist, too, for she had a smudge of paint on one vivid
          cheek, and her black hair was untidily down over her
          gipsy eyes.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Nice model you've got&#8212;good skin tints&#8212;oh,
          don't bother about the fixative if you're working. I see
          it."
        </p>
        <p>
          She darted in, past Joy, snatched a bottle half full of
          something yellow, and was out again before any one could
          speak.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I'm hurrying," she called superfluously back as she fled
          to the floor below. "Giving a dance tonight."
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy, most mousy-quiet in her chair, mentally registered
          another requirement toward being the kind of girl she
          ought to be. There were such lots of wonderful things to
          learn!
        </p>
        <p>
          She went to the Morrows regularly every day after that,
          six days in all. She told Grandmother where she was, not
          what she was doing. It didn't occur to her that
          Grandmother would mind, but she thought it would be
          pleasanter to surprise her, and say, "See the lovely
          dress I earned all myself, posing for the Morrows!"
        </p>
        <p>
          Meanwhile, Grandmother, pleased at her little girl's
          brightened face and general happiness of demeanor, asked
          no questions.
        </p>
        <p>
          "You've been one of the best models we ever had, my
          dear," said Mrs. Morrow in her deep, unceremonious voice,
          when the last day came. "And it occurred to me that you
          might be too hurried when the last day came to do your
          shopping yourself. So I just ran uptown and got your
          pretties for you."
        </p>
        <p>
          It was not for a long time that Joy discovered the
          regular pay of a model to be fifty cents an hour, and the
          sum total of her gray costume to have been&#8212;it was
          late for summer styles, so they were marked
          down&#8212;fifty-three dollars and ninety cents. But Mrs.
          Morrow had said to Mr. Morrow, who usually saw things as
          she did, even before she explained them:
        </p>
        <p>
          "Alton Havenith would never let that dear little thing
          have anything as modish as those clothes. He'd keep her
          for a living illustration to his poem-books till he died.
          And we're making a lot on that Sagawinna Courthouse
          thing.... And we haven't any daughter."
        </p>
        <p>
          And Mr. Morrow, remembering a seven-year-old with blue
          eyes and yellow hair, who had never grown old enough to
          ask for French-heeled shoes and picture hats, said only,
          "That's what I thought, too."
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy, blissfully ignorant that she had been given a good
          deal of a present, kissed them both ecstatically on
          receiving a long, large pasteboard box, and almost ran
          home. She was so eager, indeed, to get upstairs and try
          on her finery that she quite upset a Neo-Celtic poet who
          had come to see if Grandfather would write an article
          about him, and was standing on the doorstep on one foot
          in a dreamy manner. He was rather small, and so not
          difficult to fall over. She did not stop to see if he was
          injured; she merely recovered herself, grasped her
          precious boxes more closely and sped on upstairs,
          thinking how pleasant it was that she was no relation to
          <i>him</i>. To have even fine poetry written about you
          was bad enough; it must be much worse if the poetry was
          bad, too.
        </p>
        <p>
          When she opened her box she found that Mrs. Morrow had
          seen and bought something else for her; a golden-brown
          wool jersey sweater suit, with a little brown cap to
          match.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Oh, how lovely! I can wear them all day, and the gray
          things all night&#8212;all evening, I mean," Joy exulted.
          "And maybe I'll never have to put on the picture dresses
          at all!"
        </p>
        <p>
          She went to sleep that night with the brown suit laid out
          in its box across the foot of her bed, below her feet,
          and the gray chiffon hat, with its golden yellow roses,
          on a chair by her, where she could touch it if she woke
          in the night and thought she had dreamed it. She said her
          prayers almost into it; she was so obliged to the Lord
          for the hat and the frocks, and the man who had talked to
          her in the dark, that she felt as if she ought to take
          the hat, at least, and show it to God while she was
          praying.
        </p>
        <hr>

        <p>
          They had been in Maine long enough for Joy to discover
          what a cottage inn really was. It appeared that the inn
          itself lived in the middle, as a sort of parent; and all
          around it sprang up small cottages, where you and yours
          could dwell, and never associate with anybody you didn't
          want to, except at mealtime, or lingering about a little
          afterwards, or at dances. And if you were unusually
          exclusive (also unusually rich), they took you over your
          meals, and you never saw anybody at all. Joy was
          exceedingly glad that Grandfather was only comfortably
          off, because she liked, best of all the day's round, the
          little times before and after dinner when she could sit
          on the porch and watch people, and decide whom she was
          going to like most, and whom she was going to be most
          like.
        </p>
        <p>
          She wore her brown woolen frock all day long the first
          day, changing to the gray silk in the evening&#8212;the
          dear gray silk, all little glints of embroidery and
          little falls of chiffon!&#8212;and the gray hat with it.
          She was waiting for her grandparents to ask her where she
          got it, but they were so occupied with getting themselves
          settled, and seeing that their place and hers at table
          were sufficiently far from the noisier crowds of people
          not to be a strain on Grandfather's nerves and Joy's,
          that nothing was said. As a matter of fact, Grandfather
          thought Grandmother had bought it for her, and
          Grandmother thought Grandfather had; so each said pretty
          things about it to the other, without coming straight
          out, as their courteous custom with each other was; and
          the secret was still Joy's.
        </p>
        <p>
          By the second day Joy saw that people were beginning to
          find out who Grandfather was. So she deliberately ran
          away. Not badly, nor far; she only had a waiter who
          seemed to want to be nice to her make her up a little
          packet of sandwiches, and then she took to the nearest
          woods. She quite intended to be back for dinner; she
          wouldn't have missed the pageant of sunburned, laughing
          people streaming in, for anything; not even at the risk
          of being asked if she, too, wrote poetry.
        </p>
        <p>
          The woods gained, she leaned back against a big oak tree
          with a rested sigh. There might be all the poetry in the
          world a half mile off, but here you couldn't see anything
          but trees and more trees, all autumn reds and browns and
          yellows, and the two little brown paths that crossed near
          where she sat. Her blue, black-lashed eyes rested happily
          on a great bough of scarlet and yellow maple leaves.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I haven't got to say one <i>word</i> about them," she
          breathed. "<i>Nice</i> leaves!"
        </p>
        <p>
          Then she felt vaguely penitent; and in spite of the
          scenery, began to think about Grandfather, and therefore
          poetry, again&#8212;so firm a clutch has habit. There in
          the wonderful tingling air, with the late sunset
          glimmering a little through the trees, an old poem began
          to sing itself through her head. For, though she didn't
          think so, Joy <i>did</i> like poetry.
        </p>
        <p>
          It was out of Bryant's "Library of Poetry and Song" that
          she had been brought up on. The book always opened of
          itself under Joy's hand to "Poems of Fancy."
        </p>
        <p>
          <br>
          &nbsp;&nbsp; "...<i>And I galloped and I galloped on my
          steed as white as milk,<br>
          &nbsp;&nbsp; My gown was of the grass-green and my shoes
          were of the silk,<br>
          &nbsp;&nbsp; My hair was golden-yellow, and it floated to
          my shoe,<br>
          &nbsp;&nbsp; My eyes were like two harebells dipped in
          little drops of dew</i>..."
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy leaned herself back more luxuriously.
        </p>
        <p>
          "It <i>is</i> like the enchanted forest," she breathed.
          "I can almost see the Lady in the poem galloping along,
          and the Green Gnome leaping up to stop her. The path out
          there is wide enough&#8212;people from the inn go riding
          on it. I remember their saying so, that old lady with the
          daughter that wriggles too much."
        </p>
        <p>
          At this stage in her meditations Joy laughed and ceased
          wishing. It was all very well to desire Green Gnomes and
          golden-haired fairy-ladies to gallop down the
          bridle-path, but the chances were that if any one did
          come it would be the old lady and her daughter, on livery
          horses, and that they would wish to alight and talk to
          her. City-bred Joy didn't want to talk. She only wanted
          to be left here alone with the trees and the sunset. It
          was more than time to dress for dinner, she knew it well,
          for the sunset was a little less bright. But she
          deliberately stayed where she was, the ballad singing
          itself dreamily still through her head.
        </p>
        <p>
          And then she did hear the click of a horse's hoofs, quite
          plainly.
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p><a name="ch03"><!--Marker--></a>
        <h2>
          CHAPTER THREE
        </h2>
        <h3>
          PHYLLIS RIDES THROUGH
        </h3>
        <p>
          When Joy could see the rider she was relieved to find
          that he had no intention of stopping. Then&#8212;a little
          too late&#8212;she sprang up and ran after him; for the
          horse was a pony, and the rider a little boy, laughing
          too gleefully not to be in mischief, and lashing the pony
          on. He was having a perfectly wonderful time, apparently,
          and seemed to have a safe seat; but he was certainly much
          too young to be galloping through the woods at sunset
          alone.
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy fell back panting from her vain chase.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Why, he wasn't more than four or five," she said
          half-aloud. "What <i>will</i> his mother say?"
        </p>
        <p>
          But the clatter of the light hoofs, and the delighted
          shouts of the child, passed like an apparition, leaving
          Joy half wondering if she had imagined it all. Though she
          was still a little concerned, because somebody was very
          fond of that mop of flying dusky hair, and the triumphant
          little voice that had echoed past her.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I can wait here, anyway," she decided at once. "Some one
          may come looking for him, and I can tell which way he
          went."
        </p>
        <p>
          She sat still where she was for a little while longer.
          She had nearly made up her mind to follow the child,
          when, to her great relief, she heard another horse
          coming.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I can send whoever it is after him," she thought,
          springing up and running out to the path. "Oh, wait!
          Please wait!" she called to the as yet unseen rider.
        </p>
        <p>
          The horse was pulled to a walk, and its rider slipped to
          the ground, coming into Joy's sight with the bridle over
          her arm, and the animal following her.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Did you see&#8212;" began the strange lady, just as Joy
          said:
        </p>
        <p>
          "Would you please&#8212;"
        </p>
        <p>
          Then each stopped and waited for the other to go on,
          though the lady with the big white horse seemed in haste
          to ask and be gone. She was the first to continue, rather
          hurriedly.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Did you see a little boy on a pony, riding this way?"
          she asked. "I'm hunting for him."
        </p>
        <p>
          While Joy replied she looked admiringly at the speaker.
          She was much taller than Joy, and very pretty, with long
          blue eyes, a creamy skin, and hair that was the very
          "golden-yellow" of the ballad. She might have been
          anywhere in the later twenties, but Joy learned
          afterwards that she was thirty-two. To Joy's eyes she was
          the fairy lady of the ballad come true; for she had
          evidently flung herself on her horse just as she was, in
          a green evening gown with a light cloak over it. Even in
          her anxiety for the child she had about her an atmosphere
          of bright serenity that made Joy in love with her.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I was just going to ask you to go after him," Joy
          replied as she looked. "He went past here a few minutes
          ago. I'm sure he is too little to be riding alone."
        </p>
        <p>
          "He is indeed," said the golden lady, smiling. "Little
          villain! But it seems he doesn't think so! Which way did
          he go, please?"
        </p>
        <p>
          "Straight along this path," Joy answered, pointing.
        </p>
        <p>
          The lady sprang to her horse again.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Thank you," she called back, then more and more faintly,
          "I haven't much time&#8212;now, to be&#8212;grateful as I
          should be. We'll&#8212;come&#8212;back&#8212;"
        </p>
        <p>
          The last words were hardly distinguishable from the echo
          of the flying hoofs. The ballad-lady was gone.
        </p>
        <p>
          The whole thing seemed to Joy like something out of a
          pageant. She wondered if the lovely lady in green was the
          little boy's mother, or his sister or aunt.
        </p>
        <p>
          "It was a little like the Green Gnome poem, except that
          she was hunting for him, and that the little boy was
          pretty," she thought. In the poem the Gnome had turned to
          a "tall and comely man" when the lady kissed him. She
          liked the lady; there had been something so gay and
          friendly about her, just in those few words, that Joy's
          heart felt warmed. Very few people near her own age came
          close enough to stately little Joy to be as friendly as
          the lady had been&#8212;or as the wishing-ring man had
          been.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Somewhere," Joy decided happily, "there must be lots of
          people like them, if I could only find the place. I'm
          sure I shall some day."
        </p>
        <p>
          She sat on in the gathering twilight, waiting for them to
          return. As she sat the thought of the wishing-ring man
          came back again. Wherever he was, he was wishing her
          well, and remembering her&#8212;he had said&#8212;what
          was it&#8212;he'd had a "human five minutes" with her.
          Her heart beat unreasonably, as if he might be coming
          down the brown path in the twilight, this
          instant,&#8212;as if the golden lady might bring him back
          with her.
        </p>
        <p>
          It was nearly dark, and the wind was getting colder, when
          the hoofs sounded down the path again. There were three
          of them now&#8212;and Joy's heart gave a little spring,
          till she saw that the man riding the other horse was no
          one she knew. The pony was riderless, and he was leading
          it, while the naughty little boy who had caused all the
          trouble was perched in front of the lady's saddle, most
          impenitently conversational. She had one arm tight around
          him, as if she did not want to lose him again, and she
          was smiling down at him and answering him gaily as he
          talked. Punishment was evidently waived, or so far in the
          future as not to worry anybody. The child's clear little
          assured voiced came to her, sitting in the shadows.
        </p>
        <p>
          "But if God takes care of me, Faver, I don't see why I
          need a nurse bovvering," he was expostulating.
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy didn't hear just how his family met this objection.
          She saw that the lady looked about for her, and could not
          see her in the gathering darkness.
        </p>
        <p>
          Then she went back to the hotel, where she was very late
          for dinner. She looked around for the riders, but she did
          not see them. Evidently they were having dinner taken
          over.
        </p>
        <hr>

        <p>
          Phyllis Harrington, rather regretfully, hooked a
          dog-chain to the porch railing of the cottage she and her
          husband had just hired. It was an entirely unnecessary
          part of the family bull-terrier's wardrobe, and she
          intended to use it as an instrument of justice. So she
          called her small son. She believed in making the
          punishment fit the crime, and Philip had flagrantly run
          away, quite against orders, the evening before.
        </p>
        <p>
          He appeared at her summons, smiling angelically. Philip
          Harrington had not the smallest visible excuse for being
          the son of his parents, for his father was not
          particularly dark, and his mother distinctly gold-blond.
          Philip threw back, it was supposed, to the family Pirate,
          a semi-mythical person whom Phyllis said she'd had some
          thirteen generations ago. Phyllis was a New Englander.
          The Pirate must have been dark; at least Philip had
          tragic, enormous brown eyes with dense lashes, a mop of
          straight black hair, and a dusky skin, deeply rose-red at
          cheeks and lips. He also possessed the gentle, solemn
          courtesy of a Spanish grandee, which the Pirate may or
          may not have been. He was full of charm of manner, and
          combined a spirit of fearless loving-kindness to all the
          world with an inability to see why he shouldn't always
          have his own way; which made him difficult to manage.
        </p>
        <p>
          "You goin' to chain me up, Mother?" he inquired
          affectionately, nestling up to her.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Yes," explained his mother, hardening her heart, "little
          boys who run away from home like little dogs have to be
          treated like little dogs."
        </p>
        <p>
          "Oh, <i>I'll</i> be a little dog," replied Philip,
          entering agreeably into the idea, and backing up to be
          chained. "No, I'll be a big dog. I'll run around an' jerk
          my chain an' say 'Woof! Woof!' like the Hewitts' setter.
          And Foxy 'n I'll have bones together!" His small
          Vel&aacute;squez face lighted rapturously at the
          prospect. "Here, Foxy, Foxy!"
        </p>
        <p>
          The black French bull whose chain Philip was using dashed
          up at the summons. He was middle-aged, but he had a young
          heart still, and his tail vibrated madly as he bounded
          between Phyllis and her son.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Oh, he's <i>got</i> a bone!" exclaimed Philip, gleefully
          dropping on all fours.
        </p>
        <p>
          Phyllis stood up from chaining her child, and turned
          appealingly to her husband, coming down the steps of the
          little bungalow with two-and-a-half-year-old Angela on
          his shoulder.
        </p>
        <p>
          "You look like a colored illustration from the
          <i>Graphic</i>," she said irrelevantly. "You're just in
          time to assist discipline. <i>Look!</i>" she pointed
          tragically to her victim.
        </p>
        <p>
          He would have been happily disputing the opportune bone
          with Foxy, had not that faithful animal's devotion led
          him to hand it over at once.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Faver, make him take it away from me!" he demanded.
          "Faver, I'm all chained up! I'm a little dog!"
        </p>
        <p>
          Little Angela, who looked like a slim, tiny
          Christmas-card <i>Christ-kind</i>, and was as fascinating
          a little demon as ever coquetted with the world at large,
          struggled to get down, and demanded to be chained up and
          be another little dog. Her father set her down, whereat
          she made a bolt for the dog, the bone, and her happily
          engaged brother.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Do you think there's any way of conveying to him that
          this is not a new amusement, Allan?" demanded his mother,
          half-laughing.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Don't let's try," said Allan promptly. "Everything's
          going beautifully. Philip's happy, and Angela's going to
          be gloriously dirty in a minute, which will give her
          nurse something to wash. You know how bitter Viola is
          about never getting the children to herself for a
          minute."
        </p>
        <p>
          Phyllis slipped an arm through her tall husband's, as
          they stood by the steps together.
        </p>
        <p>
          "No, but Allan, what <i>would</i> you do?"
        </p>
        <p>
          Allan laughed.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Send him back to Wallraven, and tell Johnny Hewitt to
          see that he's plunged into the middle of the chickenpox
          epidemic we fled from. How would you like that, young
          man?"
        </p>
        <p>
          Philip looked up with deprecating politeness, on being
          directly addressed.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Please, Faver, if you don't mind my name's Jinks! You
          must say, 'Here, Jinks,' and I say 'Woof! Woof!' and wag
          my tail."
        </p>
        <p>
          "Say wuff!" echoed Angela, with a dazzling smile at her
          elders, and an effort not to tumble over on the grass.
        </p>
        <p>
          Phyllis pounced on her babies at Allan's alarming
          suggestion, and managed to hug them both at once; an
          ordeal which Philip stood with every evidence of
          pleasure, and Angela under protest.
        </p>
        <p>
          "My poor little lambs! ... Allan, this is the first
          chickenpox they've had up there since the summer we came.
          We'd been married a month or so, and you weren't quite
          sure whether you liked me or not. Do you remember?"
        </p>
        <p>
          "I remember that first summer," said he. "It's the only
          part of those seven years that I do want to remember. But
          the chickenpox part of it had escaped me."
        </p>
        <p>
          "Well, of course," his wife admitted, "in those days
          children's diseases were nothing whatever in our lives.
          But when Johnny Hewitt refers to it as that wonderful
          summer seven years ago, I have discovered that he means
          it was wonderful because he saved forty-three out of
          forty-three cases, not because you and I had married each
          other to please your mother, and were finding out that it
          was rather nice."
        </p>
        <p>
          "I'll be hanged if I know to this day what possible
          niceness there was for you in being married to a man
          everybody thought would never get well," said Allan.
        </p>
        <p>
          "He was you," explained Phyllis matter-of-factly, sitting
          down on a step to look at him better. "Anybody'd fall in
          love with you, Allan. You know perfectly well that it
          even happens now."
        </p>
        <p>
          "Certainly," said he scornfully. "My well-known beauty
          and charm attract all classes; they besiege my path by
          day and night. By Jove, Phyllis, there's one now, the
          flapper I saw in the dining-room lately. She's doubtless
          come over to say that she'll wait for me till you're
          through, being young. She's pretty, too."
        </p>
        <p>
          Phyllis laughed, and patted his foot, the only part of
          him she could reach without getting up. "Now, now&#8212;I
          meant no harm. You can't help being attractive.... Why,
          it's the girl in brown, the one who started out of a tree
          like a dryad, and showed me the way Philip had gone, last
          night. She was the loveliest creature I ever saw. Look,
          Allan, she's like a Rossetti picture."
        </p>
        <p>
          "She <i>is</i> like a Rossetti," he answered, "but she
          looks rather happier. Most of the Rossetti ladies I ever
          saw hoped to die of consumption shortly."
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy, coming slowly over the grass on an errand from her
          grandfather, kept her eyes on the ground, because that
          way it was easier to remember the message she had to
          repeat up and down the rows of cottages dotted among the
          trees. So it was not until she was quite close that she
          knew Phyllis again.
        </p>
        <p>
          Philip barked her a cheerful greeting, and Phyllis rose
          to greet her.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I am Alton Havenith's granddaughter," Joy began, and
          then interrupted herself joyfully.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Oh, it's my lady in green!" she cried. "You didn't see
          me when you came back."
        </p>
        <p>
          "I looked for you," Phyllis explained, holding out both
          hands in welcome, "but it was too dark to see you. I
          thought you had gone home. Did you say you were Alton
          Havenith's granddaughter? I love his poems. I'm Phyllis
          Harrington, and this is my husband. I'm eternally
          grateful to you for helping me find my little boy. You
          see I've made sure he won't escape again."
        </p>
        <p>
          "He isn't chained for life, as you might infer from
          that," Allan explained.
        </p>
        <p>
          Philip ceased being a dog for the moment, and held his
          hand out amiably to Joy.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I'm Philip," he explained, following his mother's
          example and introducing himself. "They called me Philip
          'cause it was the nearest thing Faver could get to
          Phyllis. You see, they didn't know there was going to be
          Angela. This is Angela. Isn't she pretty?"
        </p>
        <p>
          Angela, on being righted and shown off, produced her
          usual dazzling smile, and gave Joy a sweet, sidelong look
          out of her azure eyes&#8212;the look she knew conquered
          people. They were both, as Phyllis often said,
          <i>such</i> satisfactory children for exhibition
          purposes!
        </p>
        <p>
          "Oh, aren't they darlings!" cried Joy, forgetting her
          mission gladly. "Will&#8212;will they mind if I hug
          them?"
        </p>
        <p>
          "Not a bit," answered their father, whom Joy had asked.
          "They are practically indestructible, and they like
          petting."
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy knelt down, putting a shy arm around baby Angela,
          who, after a moment's survey of her, kissed her frankly
          of her own accord, with two tight little arms around her
          neck.
        </p>
        <p>
          Allan had an idea that the newcomer would be more at ease
          alone with Phyllis and the children, so he made some
          excuse about golf (which he hated) and disappeared. Joy
          sat down on the grass, with Angela momentarily in her
          lap, and Foxy, who hinted that he, too, liked kind words,
          at her side.
        </p>
        <p>
          She had never had so many people (counting dogs) act as
          if they liked really her. Foxy and the children didn't
          care a bit whose granddaughter she was, and Mrs.
          Harrington, too, had made friends with her without
          minding. But she was conscientious, and she felt she
          ought to go on with her errand before she really gave
          herself up to the enjoyment of her call.
        </p>
        <p>
          "My grandfather is giving a reading from his works this
          evening," she said, sitting up mechanically and crossing
          her hands, "and he sent me to say that he would be glad
          if you and Mr. Harrington would care to come."
        </p>
        <p>
          "We'd love to," Phyllis answered on the spot. "At his
          cottage?"
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy nodded.
        </p>
        <p>
          "It's fun," Phyllis went on, "leading this semidetached
          life, with no responsibilities whatever. There's only one
          drawback as far as I'm concerned; if Philip strays off
          too far somebody may take him for a rabbit or a deer. The
          places where there's hunting are only two miles away.
          That's why Allan and I were scouring the woods last night
          for him. Usually we let him run away as much as he likes,
          and the poor child can't understand the new arrangement."
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy looked down at Philip, who had curled himself into an
          indiscriminate heap with the dog, and was taking a nap by
          way of whiling away his imprisonment.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Do you hunt?" she asked.
        </p>
        <p>
          Phyllis shook her head.
        </p>
        <p>
          "The way the gun bangs when it goes off worries me. I
          believe there's a bangless gun, but even so, you're
          expected to kill things, and I think the things are much
          happier alive. I don't even like the taste of them
          cooked. But Allan hunts. He brings game-bags full of poor
          little dead things back whenever he's where he can do it.
          He hasn't yet, here. We just came, you know."
        </p>
        <p>
          "I'm so glad you did!" said Joy fervently.
        </p>
        <p>
          "We were like Old Man Kangaroo&#8212;we had to!" smiled
          Phyllis. "There's chickenpox at our usual summer home, so
          we basely fled, leaving Johnny to struggle against its
          fearful ravages single-handed."
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy sat Angela down, because she was beginning to
          wriggle.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Is Johnny your brother?" she asked shyly.
        </p>
        <p>
          Phyllis shook her head.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I haven't a relative on earth, except these
          babies&#8212;of course Allan's more of a relative by
          marriage. No, Johnny Hewitt's the family doctor, a
          classmate of Allan's, and a family possession. He might
          as well live with us, he's so much about the house and
          garden. I suppose this place is very good for the
          angel-children, but I'm afraid that in a few days I'm
          going to wish I was back among the roses, with Allan and
          Johnny and a banjo and a moon!"
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy's eyes lighted.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Roses?" she said. "Oh, have you a rose-bush!"
        </p>
        <p>
          Phyllis laughed.
        </p>
        <p>
          "'Do we keep a bee?' We have a garden full of roses. The
          gardener hints mournfully that we ought to take prizes
          with them, but I know perfectly well that would mean I
          couldn't pick them unless he let me. So I've given him a
          bush to play with, and he does take prizes with that.
          He's colored, so Allan says we have to encourage him to
          have ambitions. He's married to the cook. Our having
          colored servants shocked the neighbors terribly at first,
          but they're hardened to it now. I gave an intelligence
          office <i>carte blanche</i> when I was married, and got
          the ones I have now; and we're so fond of each other that
          I simply can't part with them and get haughty white
          persons."
        </p>
        <p>
          Phyllis' one idea in those early days, as Joy learned
          later, had been to have a summer staff who were cheerful.
          The intelligence office woman had, naturally, chosen
          happy-minded darkies. And happy they still remained; also
          adoring.
        </p>
        <p>
          The neighbors, though Phyllis did not state this, from
          being shocked had become passionately envious. Servants
          who had stayed eight years without a change, merely one
          addition, were things to be watched hungrily.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I beg your pardon, but it's luncheon-time, Mrs.
          Harrington," said the children's nurse at this point,
          appearing in the doorway. "May I have the children?"
        </p>
        <p>
          Phyllis bent over the sleeping boy and dog and unfastened
          her son. The nurse gathered him up affectionately, and
          went in search of Angela, who had strayed around the
          corner of the house a little while before.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Oh, I must go," cried Joy, starting to her feet.
          "They'll be wondering where I am. And I haven't been to
          half the cottages."
        </p>
        <p>
          She turned to go, then looked back at Phyllis wistfully.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Think of it," she breathed. "A garden full of roses, and
          two men, and a banjo, and a moon!"
        </p>
        <p>
          Her hands locked together over the invisible wishing
          ring. She wondered if there was a garden like that
          anywhere that <i>he</i> lived.
        </p>
        <p>
          Phyllis Harrington looked thoughtfully after her. There
          was something about Joy Havenith that always made people
          eager to do pleasant things for her, and watch her
          enjoying them. She did get so much pleasure out of life
          whenever it let her.
        </p>
        <p>
          "It won't be my fault," said Phyllis, coming to a
          determination, "if that child doesn't get a chance at the
          garden and the moon, and the men, too!"
        </p>
        <p>
          When Phyllis made up her mind it generally stayed made.
          Accordingly, she went to the reading that night, and
          afterwards made herself as lovely to the Haveniths as she
          knew how, which was a good deal. She asked them to have
          tea with her the next day, and continued to be lovely.
          She also managed to give them a very fair idea of
          everything they might be supposed to need to know about
          the Harrington family. When she had finished they had
          discovered several mutual friends, a meeting with Mr.
          Harrington's late mother abroad, the genealogies of both
          Allan and Phyllis, and even a common ancestor somewhere
          in the seventeen-nineties on Allan's side. The Haveniths
          thought it had all just transpired, but Phyllis had
          really been tactfully offering references. After about a
          week of pleasant friendship Phyllis produced her
          invitation.
        </p>
        <p>
          She wanted to take Joy home with her for the last part of
          September and the first part of October. Joy was wild
          with delight at the idea; but her grandparents would not
          let her go. They never had before, and it didn't occur to
          them that they could now.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Just for a little while?" she pleaded.
        </p>
        <p>
          But her grandparents were firm.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Under no circumstances could we let you go away from us,
          dear," said her grandfather firmly. "I am an old man, and
          the time will come soon enough when I shall be with you
          no longer. If you loved me, you would not ask it. When
          your lover comes it will be time enough."
        </p>
        <p>
          It sounded true enough. Joy did not exactly know how to
          meet it. Then she brightened up.
        </p>
        <p>
          "If you let me go for a little while, I'm sure I'd miss
          you dreadfully, and love you more than ever. I'm sure I
          would!"
        </p>
        <p>
          But Grandfather didn't intend to part with his little
          girl on any such premise as that, and Grandmother was
          sure something dreadful would happen if she was allowed
          to go.
        </p>
        <p>
          "There is no excuse for it, unless you were engaged to be
          married, dear, and going on a visit to your prospective
          people-in-law," she said. "I couldn't let you go off
          without me otherwise."
        </p>
        <p>
          It was too tempting. Before she thought, Joy had spoken.
        </p>
        <p>
          "If I were, would it be all right?" she asked.
        </p>
        <p>
          Grandfather answered her, somewhat at length.
        </p>
        <p>
          "My dear child, you know my feelings about love. I myself
          married your grandmother after a two days' courtship,
          when she was seventeen and I was twenty-one; and I may
          say that I have never regretted it&#8212;nor, I hope, has
          she. If you were affianced, nothing should cause me to
          interfere with the course of true love. Your grandmother
          and I would let you go to visit his people willingly.
          Your assurance that you loved him&#8212;&#8212;"
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy leaned forward, her eyes blazing with excitement.
        </p>
        <p>
          "And suppose I told you I was engaged, would you let me
          go to visit Phyllis, if she lived near him, and&#8212;and
          his people were so situated that he couldn't have me?"
        </p>
        <p>
          Grandfather was perfectly certain that Joy was no more
          engaged than old Elizabeth the cook was, and he went on
          placidly with his hypothetical case, which was also his
          hobby.
        </p>
        <p>
          "If I had met the young man, received him socially, even
          once, my child, you may be sure, under those
          circumstances, you might go. One has no right to
          interfere with&#8212;&#8212;"
        </p>
        <p>
          Grandmother in the background wasn't so sure, her eager
          little face said, but she was a very obedient and adoring
          wife.
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy interrupted him. He had given her a loophole, and she
          was desperate to go. She couldn't wait forever for the
          lover!
        </p>
        <p>
          "Grandfather, I&#8212;I <i>am</i> engaged! I met him at
          one of your receptions, and so did you, <i>quite</i>
          socially. You&#8212;I know you must have met him, and
          liked him, too&#8212;everybody does."
        </p>
        <p>
          It was a terrible thing to do, and Joy's heart beat fast.
          But surely the Wishing-Ring Man wouldn't mind&#8212;he
          would never know even! And Grandfather had talked so long
          about giving her up at sight to that hypothetical lover,
          that he might almost have been said to put the wickedness
          into her head. And if she waited for a real one she might
          wander alone about the parlors till she was an old, old
          maid with trailing gray braids.
        </p>
        <p>
          There was a frozen silence.
        </p>
        <p>
          "En-gaged?" said Grandfather faintly.
        </p>
        <p>
          Grandfather had a code all to himself. He didn't know it,
          being a man, but he had. It forbade ever being taken by
          surprise, ever being at a loss, ever being in the wrong,
          or ever contradicting himself. This made for great
          respect, given to him by the world at large, his family,
          and himself; but it put him at a terrible disadvantage in
          things like this. He couldn't go back on what the great
          Alton Havenith had said for many years. Joy, shivering
          but desperate, knew this perfectly well, though she
          didn't formulate it.
        </p>
        <p>
          "You always hoped for it," she told him firmly.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I&#8212;I did," said Grandfather with an obvious
          discomfort, but with unabated loyalty to himself. Then he
          snatched at a pretext. Poor little Grandmother's, hands
          were opening and shutting, but she was well trained, and
          she didn't speak till he was through dealing with the
          situation.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Can your friends vouch for him socially?" Grandfather
          demanded.
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy's alert, frightened mind scurried about for a moment,
          then she plunged into further fabrications.
        </p>
        <p>
          "He's&#8212;why, Grandfather, he's their closest friend,
          the one they call Johnny. He&#8212;he lives near them."
        </p>
        <p>
          Grandfather was entirely what the profane would call up a
          tree. He had been giving his consent for some seventeen
          years. And Joy had swept the ground from under his feet.
          He did not in the least remember meeting this amazing
          lover at any of his receptions, but there had been a
          tradition for many years that he never forgot a name or a
          face. Now he <i>had</i> been doing it for two or three
          seasons past, but he never admitted it to himself, and
          nobody else dared admit it, either.
        </p>
        <p>
          As for the truth of what Joy said, it did not occur to
          him to doubt that. Joy had never told them anything but
          the truth in her life. As a matter of fact, there had
          never been anything for her to deceive them about. But
          that did not dawn on him.
        </p>
        <p>
          There was another frozen silence. Grandfather was
          checkmated.
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy had not intended to do it, of set purpose. She
          respected Grandfather too thoroughly. But she was
          struggling for the only piece of happiness that had ever
          come her way in the whole of her placid, tranced little
          life.
        </p>
        <p>
          "In that case, my dear," Grandfather pronounced slowly,
          "I give my consent. What did you say the young man's name
          was?"
        </p>
        <p>
          "John," she said faintly, bending her head, and coloring
          hotly and suddenly. She had just remembered that the
          Wishing-Ring Man's name really was Jack, and she hadn't
          meant to use <i>that</i> name. That was private.
        </p>
        <p>
          "That makes it a little better," said Grandmother; why,
          Joy did not see or know until much too late. "His name is
          Hewitt. You remember Mrs. Harrington's discussing him
          with us, Alton." ... Then all her obedience to
          Grandfather did not keep her from putting her arms around
          Joy and beginning to cry.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Oh, my dear, my dearest," she said. "Why didn't you
          confide in me about it? You know I would have been so
          interested!"
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy had a little lump in her throat, and she almost cried
          out, "I'm not, Grandmother!"
        </p>
        <p>
          But she had all Grandfather's pride, and&#8212;and
          besides, she had gone this far&#8212;how could she go
          back?
        </p>
        <p>
          Grandfather interposed, struggling hard with his natural
          surprise.
        </p>
        <p>
          "A little emotion is natural in this case, dear Jennie,"
          he said, "but you must make allowance for a young girl's
          shyness. The young man, I trust, will speak to us about
          it."
        </p>
        <p>
          How she would explain to Phyllis had not yet occurred to
          Joy.... There are times when an education in all the best
          poets is an everlasting nuisance.
        </p>
        <p>
          <br>
          &nbsp;&nbsp; <i>"Oh, what a tangled web we weave<br>
          &nbsp;&nbsp; When first we practise to deceive!"</i><br>
          &nbsp;&nbsp;<br>
          danced through Joy's head.... If only those fatal first
          sentences hadn't popped out, and if she only hadn't been
          too proud to take them back!
        </p>
        <p>
          Just the same she continued to feel that a month of life
          off with gay, kind people her own age was worth almost
          any price; which was exceedingly wrong, and got Joy into
          a fearful mess, as amateur lying is apt to do. Because
          Grandfather rose up after this, with what Phyllis called
          his Earl of Dorincourt air, and spoke.
        </p>
        <p>
          "There is no time like the present for the rectifying of
          an error. We will go over now, and explain to Mrs.
          Harrington that when we refused our consent to this visit
          we were unaware of all the circumstances. Come, my love.
          Come, Joy."
        </p>
        <p>
          From sheer paralysis of will power Joy let him draw her
          hand through his arm in his accustomed way, and march her
          off towards the Harrington cottage between himself and
          Grandmother. She felt like Mary-Queen-of-Scots being led
          to execution, and exceedingly regretful that she had
          never learned to faint. Suddenly a wonderful thought came
          over her.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Let me run ahead, please, and see if Phyllis is at
          home," she asked, and ran ahead of them without waiting
          for an answer.
        </p>
        <p>
          It was golden, late afternoon, and she could see Phyllis
          on her veranda. She was lying in the hammock with little
          Angela nestled beside her, and Philip constructing
          something monumental with screws and wires on the floor
          by them. She had apparently been telling them a quite
          unexpurgated edition of Little Red-Riding-Hood, for as
          Joy flew up the steps Philip swerved with a startled
          look.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Do you think there could be a wolf after Joy?" he
          inquired of his mother.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Phyllis, please, I want to talk to you alone," Joy
          panted. "I have to tell you before <i>they</i> get here.
          And&#8212;" she laughed a little breathlessly&#8212;"it
          isn't fit for the children's ears."
        </p>
        <p>
          "You don't know what their ears are used to," Phyllis
          answered leisurely. "Philip, darling, you can go and hunt
          for your friend Mr. Jones on the links, if you want to."
        </p>
        <p>
          Philip dashed off, grinning happily. He had hopes, which
          his mother was not supposed to know (but did), of being
          allowed to caddy some glorious day, if he watched his
          opportunity.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Oh, Phyllis, I'm in dreadful trouble, and please won't
          you help me?" Joy began, flinging herself close to the
          hammock and clutching its edge with one nervous hand.
          "Please help me&#8212;"
        </p>
        <p>
          "Of course," said Phyllis. "What's it about?"
        </p>
        <p>
          But Joy had delayed her story too long. Before Phyllis
          had more than made her rash promise of help the elder
          Haveniths were upon her. Phyllis rose to her feet to
          greet them, with an air of gracious courtesy which the
          infant swinging beside her scarcely impaired at all.
        </p>
        <p>
          "We have brought our little girl over, my dear Mrs.
          Harrington, to tell you that we have reconsidered our
          decision," Mr. Havenith stated, sweeping his broad Panama
          from his wonderful white hair. "The information Joy has
          brought us&#8212;"
        </p>
        <p>
          He was interrupted by the appearance round the corner of
          the cottage of two men. One was Allan Harrington. The
          other&#8212;
        </p>
        <p>
          "Here's Johnny, Phyllis," Allan called joyously. "His old
          epidemic's all over, everybody either killed or cured. He
          was actually on the right train, the one he said he'd
          take."
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy's heart turned over. This was a doubly dreadful thing
          she had brought on herself.
        </p>
        <p>
          It was the Wishing-Ring Man!
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p><a name="ch04"><!--Marker--></a>
        <h2>
          CHAPTER FOUR
        </h2>
        <h3>
          THE RESCUE OF THE PRINCESS
        </h3>
        <p>
          For one awful moment nobody spoke. John Hewitt, having no
          key to the situation, was quite unembarrassed. So was
          Angela, who wriggled herself to earth with a rapturous
          shriek of "Johnny! Johnny! Cakies!"
        </p>
        <p>
          Hewitt gathered up Angela, and, followed by his host,
          came up the steps, to where Phyllis stood, tall and
          gracious, with Joy clinging to her.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Why, it's little Joy!" he said surprisedly, smiling at
          her as he took Phyllis' hand. "Where did you find her,
          Phyllis?"
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy clung closer to Phyllis, waiting for the storm to
          break, for Mr. Havenith was stepping forward now, holding
          a courteous, if dazed, hand to the man his granddaughter
          had elected as her fianc&eacute;. He spoke before Phyllis
          could answer.
        </p>
        <p>
          "And so you are my little girl's betrothed!" he said with
          rather stiff courtesy. "Ah&#8212;yes. I remember you,
          sir."
        </p>
        <p>
          John Hewitt's gray eyes moved from Phyllis, standing
          there obviously quite taken by surprise, to Joy, clinging
          to her burning-cheeked, in what was quite as obviously an
          agony of terror. He caught his breath for a moment, moved
          forward and opened his lips to speak, then shut them
          again firmly and stood still where he was, with the
          afternoon sunlight glinting over his fair head, and
          little Angela's more golden one, pressed close beside it.
          As he remained still, his eyes rested gravely on Joy: the
          very little princess of the fairytale, with the dragon
          imminent at any moment. She looked very piteous and
          terrified and small; not more than fifteen, and
          unbearably afraid of him, with her black-framed blue eyes
          fixed on his in an appeal as agonized as it was
          unconscious. He caught his breath again, then turned to
          answer her grandfather, his decision made.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I am glad you remember me, sir," he said gravely, "and
          exceedingly glad that you are willing Joy should&#8212;"
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy gave a long shudder of relief, and relaxed all over.
          He was not going to put her to shame there before all of
          them. She would have time to explain. She would not have
          her visit, but that, even, seemed a small thing beside
          the dreadful danger she had just escaped. She could tell
          him when they were alone.
        </p>
        <p>
          Grandmother was coming forward now, to speak to him,
          where he stood, straight and dignified and handsome, with
          the little girl still on one arm.
        </p>
        <p>
          "You are my old friend Grace Carpenter's son, as I was
          just telling Mr. Havenith. Edith Carpenter's nephew....
          I&#8212;I am glad you are a friend's son," Grandmother
          finished tremulously.
        </p>
        <p>
          John set Angela down and took Grandmother's hand, saying
          something to her gently&#8212;Joy never knew what. She
          had stood enough.
        </p>
        <p>
          Phyllis felt Joy's hand pull out of hers. The
          inn-cottages were all built alike, so Joy knew perfectly
          well how to bolt through the front door, through the
          living-room to the back door and away. Viola, mending a
          little sock, caught a glimpse of flying skirts and flying
          braids.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Them red-haired folks certainly is tempestuous, but
          they's gitters," she remarked to herself philosophically,
          and went on with her mending.
        </p>
        <p>
          Outside, Phyllis looked at Allan and Allan looked at
          Phyllis. There didn't seem much to say about it. At last
          Allan spoke, in a way that he and Phyllis agreed
          afterwards was painfully inadequate, but was all he could
          think of to say.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Ah&#8212;would you like to put away your suitcase, old
          man?" he inquired. "You must be tired of&#8212;of seeing
          it there."
        </p>
        <p>
          Phyllis gurgled under her breath, but every one else was
          deadly serious. Nobody seemed to see anything funny about
          the offer.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Thank you very much," John responded solemnly. "Yes,
          thank you, Harrington, I believe I would."
        </p>
        <p>
          He bent over and picked it up, and followed his host
          inside.
        </p>
        <p>
          Neither of them said anything as they went upstairs.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Here's your room," Allan offered, showing it politely.
        </p>
        <p>
          "So it is," murmured John in a quite expressionless
          voice, looking at it without seeming to know how to
          enter.
        </p>
        <p>
          "It's to live in, you know," Allan suggested.
        </p>
        <p>
          At this broad hint John went in and put his suitcase on
          the bed. He still appeared to be in more or less of a
          trance-state.
        </p>
        <p>
          "If we'd known, we'd have tied a little white ribbon here
          and there, and arranged a rice-cascade&#8212;a shower,
          isn't it? or something," continued his host, amiably.
          "Awfully sorry, old chap, but you shouldn't have been so
          darn secretive. But we'll do our best&#8212;"
        </p>
        <p>
          John awoke at this, and caught up a small pink pincushion
          which sat in the mathematical middle of his dresser, and
          threw it. It didn't hit Allan, because he dodged.
        </p>
        <p>
          "That's one of Phyllis' favorite pincushions," he warned
          John from outside the door. "I say, Johnny, this isn't
          any way to repay hospitality."
        </p>
        <p>
          He went on down the stair, and John could see his
          shoulders shaking.
        </p>
        <p>
          "They've both got too confounded much sense of humor,"
          said John bitterly.
        </p>
        <p>
          But he went out and picked up the pincushion just the
          same, and addressed himself to the methodical unpacking
          of his suitcase.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Oh, I forgot! Congratulations!" Allan called cheerily up
          from the stair-foot.
        </p>
        <p>
          John, casting collars automatically from suitcase to
          dresser-top, growled.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Congratulations! I need prayers more!" he said under his
          breath. "But&#8212;poor little thing! I might as well
          have stepped on a kitten! ... I certainly did tell her to
          hope for better things and they'd come.... I didn't know
          I was going to be one of 'em!"
        </p>
        <p>
          Then, as he continued to unpack he grinned in spite of
          himself, for into his mind came a poem of Guiterman's
          he'd read lately, about an agnostic Brahmin who didn't
          believe in prayer, and came inadvertently on a tiger
          praying for a meal in the jungle:
        </p>
        <p>
          <br>
          &nbsp;&nbsp; <i>"The trustful Tiger closed his
          prayer&#8212;<br>
          &nbsp;&nbsp; Behold&#8212;a Brahmin trembling there!<br>
          &nbsp;&nbsp; The Brahmin never scoffed a whit.<br>
          &nbsp;&nbsp; The Prayer had answer</i>.&#8212;He
          <i>was</i> It."
        </p>
        <p>
          "I wonder," mused John, "whether she's a kitten, or a
          tiger? Anyway, <i>I</i> was <i>It</i>! ... I can't stand
          any more of anything just now. I'll get out till
          dinner-time!"
        </p>
        <p>
          He tiptoed downstairs, and in his turn slid out the back
          door. The Haveniths were still talking to the Harringtons
          on the front veranda, he noted with a certain pleasure in
          their durance, and Phyllis' back looked polite but tired.
          He headed for the adjacent woods, diving into the leafy
          coolness with a feeling of escape. The wood blew cool and
          a little moist, and fragrant with far-off wood-smoke, and
          there was a feeling of solitude that he liked. He sighed
          with relief as he rounded the turn in the wood-path.
        </p>
        <p>
          And there before him, at the foot of her great oak, stood
          Joy, not expecting him in the least. She uttered a little
          cry at sight of him, and turned to run away. Then she
          thought better of it, and stood her ground. Just what
          John might be going to do or say to her she did not know,
          but she thought he was entitled to do almost anything,
          and stood prepared for it, her face buried in her hands.
        </p>
        <p>
          John had been a little irritated at the sight of her, but
          her evident terror moved him, as it had before. He was,
          through and through, the best type of physician; a man
          whose first and ruling impulse was always to help and
          heal, whether it was body or soul, or only feelings. Joy,
          standing with her face hidden, felt him laying his hands,
          smooth and strong, over hers.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Aren't you even going to look at the fianc&eacute;
          you've picked out?" she heard him say half-amusedly.
          "Why, I'm not going to hurt you, child."
        </p>
        <p>
          He took her hands down. She let him, and raised her eyes
          to his kindly, wise steel-gray ones. He seemed to be
          regarding her in a friendly fashion, and she dared to
          look at him friendlily, too&#8212;even to smile a little.
          He brought to her the same sense of brightness and
          well-being that she had experienced before, and her heart
          felt lighter, though by every law of reason she should
          have been more ashamed than ever, confronted with him,
          there alone.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Of course you won't hurt me," she said. "But&#8212;well,
          when you steal anybody's name and get engaged to it, they
          have a right to be cross. You can be, if you want to, and
          I won't say a word. I know very well I deserve it!"
        </p>
        <p>
          John Hewitt <i>had</i> intended to be cross&#8212;very
          cross indeed; but with Joy's kitten-blue eyes fixed
          trustfully on his he found it difficult even to be stern.
          He made an attempt, nevertheless.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Don't you know that a little girl like you isn't old
          enough to be engaged to be married?" he told her
          severely. He sat down on a heap of brown and scarlet
          leaves, the better to show Joy the error of her ways.
          "What made you think of it at all?"
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy smiled. She was quite at ease now, with the curious
          feeling of ease and happiness he always gave her, and she
          answered him calmly, drawing a heavy copper plait forward
          over each shoulder.
        </p>
        <p>
          "It's these that have made you think so all along. I'm
          nineteen."
        </p>
        <p>
          John sat back a little, with both hands clasped over one
          gray-clad knee, and looked at her again in the light of
          that.
        </p>
        <p>
          "It's hard to realize, I know," she said apologetically.
          She lifted the wonderful braids and bound them crownwise
          around her head, tying the ends together behind as if
          they were pieces of ribbon, and tucking them under with a
          comb, from behind one ear. She anchored them in front
          with the other comb, and smiled flashingly at him again.
          "Now it seems real, doesn't it? And now I'll tell you all
          about it&#8212;that is, if you have the time."
        </p>
        <p>
          He looked again at the lovely, earnest little face under
          the crown of hair, and nodded gravely. She was not like
          any girl he had ever known.... She was like the girls you
          imagined might exist, sometimes, and wondered if you'd
          like them, after all, if they did. He wanted her to go
          on, at least, and felt stealing over him a conviction
          that she couldn't have done so particularly wrong.
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy felt the lessened severity of his attitude, and took
          courage from it as she began.
        </p>
        <p>
          "You remember that day you came to Grandfather's? You
          remembered my name, so I'm sure you do remember the rest.
          Well, that day I was especially unhappy
          because&#8212;well, it's hard to explain the because.
          Things were just as good as they always had been, really;
          only that day I couldn't stand them any more. You know
          things <i>can</i> be that way."
        </p>
        <p>
          She looked at him expectantly, and he nodded again.
        </p>
        <p>
          "It was a forlorn little life for a child like
          you&#8212;oh, I keep forgetting!"
        </p>
        <p>
          He laughed.
        </p>
        <p>
          "But even nineteen," he explained, "isn't particularly
          aged to an elderly gentleman of thirty-four."
        </p>
        <p>
          "As old as that?" queried Joy.
        </p>
        <p>
          She looked at <i>him</i> again in the light of new
          information, but she shelved it for the time, and went on
          with her defense.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Well, that afternoon, when things were perfectly down to
          the very flattest bottom&#8212;'and not a ray of hope to
          gild the gloom'&#8212;you came. And things brightened up.
          You know you told me that if I hoped along, things I
          wanted would come?"
        </p>
        <p>
          "I do know it!" said John with a fervor she did not
          understand.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Well, they did!" she announced, looking at him
          radiantly, and pausing a little so he would have time to
          realize it.
        </p>
        <p>
          John Hewitt's patients had always told him that just his
          coming in made them better, and he had simply accepted
          the faculty as useful in his work. But he had never
          thought that his personality could affect a perfectly
          well person. At Joy's tribute, unconsciously given, his
          pulse quickened a little. Had he really had this much
          power for happiness over the child?...
        </p>
        <p>
          "Almost right away they brought me to this lovely place,"
          she went on happily, "and almost right after that I met
          the Harringtons. It's all seemed to me because of your
          wishing ring."
        </p>
        <p>
          "What wishing ring?" he asked, smiling indulgently at
          her, as one does at a child's fancies.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Don't you remember?" she asked a little forlornly.
          "Well&#8212;you have such lots of things to remember! You
          said, 'Just keep on believing things will come right,
          don't lose heart, and they will.' I said, 'Like a wishing
          ring?' and you said, 'Yes.' I've felt as if I wore
          one&#8212;played I did, I suppose you'd say. I&#8212;I
          suppose I really am not being grown-up very well, after
          all.... Well, after I knew Phyllis the best thing of all
          happened. She asked me to come stay with her, and have
          roses and a moon, and children all day long. But
          Grandfather always said I couldn't go under any
          circumstances but being engaged.... And I was so wild to
          go&#8212;it just slipped out&#8212;truly it did! And
          then&#8212;the gods overtook me!"
        </p>
        <p>
          She clasped her hands in her lap, and looked up at
          him&#8212;she had sunk to the ground when he did, and was
          also sitting on a leaf-heap. She tilted her head back
          against the big tree, and awaited her sentence.
        </p>
        <p>
          John felt for the moment exactly the mingled pleasure and
          embarrassment that a man does who has been adopted by an
          unusually nice dog. It is a compliment, but one doesn't
          know exactly what to do with the animal. Joy sat and
          looked at him with what seemed to him to be a perfect
          trust that he would be good to her. As a matter of fact,
          Joy was merely pleased because he was there and not angry
          at her. She did hope a little that he would offer to do
          the explaining that they weren't engaged to Grandfather.
          But she was quite unprepared for what he said next, after
          a little silence.
        </p>
        <p>
          "You're a brave little thing," he told her gently. "You
          shan't miss your roses and your moons on my account....
          I'll tell you what we'll do, Joy. We'll stay engaged till
          we're out of sight of land."
        </p>
        <p>
          She looked at him with parted lips.
        </p>
        <p>
          "What&#8212;what do you mean?"
        </p>
        <p>
          "You shall go to Phyllis' just the same, child. We won't
          even tell the Harringtons that it isn't true till we're
          on the train for Wallraven."
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy stared at him, incredulous still. She could not speak
          for a moment.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Oh!" she said then. "Oh&#8212;why, you're the kindest
          man I ever knew. But then, I <i>knew</i> you were! Thank
          you ever so much ... but&#8212;are you sure you don't
          mind at all?"
        </p>
        <p>
          "Quite sure," he told her.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Well&#8212;<i>thank</i> you!" said Joy fervently. "And
          oh, if I ever get the chance, I promise I'll do something
          for you you want. Just think of what you're giving
          me&#8212;a whole month of being just as happy as I like!
          We can go back to the bungalows now. I don't mind being
          congratulated one bit after this&#8212;do you?"
        </p>
        <p>
          "N-no," said John a little dubiously. Then he laughed.
          "There's one thing you've forgotten. There's always a
          ring when people are engaged, even for four days."
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy said nothing to this. She watched him while he
          slipped a curious, chased dull gold band with a diamond
          sunk in it, from his little finger. "It isn't a
          conventional solitaire sitting up on stilts, but it will
          do, won't it?" he asked.
        </p>
        <p>
          She held her little slim hand out for it, her face
          sparkling. His were the long, slender, square-tipped
          fingers of the typical "surgeon's hand," smooth and
          strong. But Joy's hands were little for her build, which
          was not large, and the ring slid down her engagement
          finger till she had to anchor it with a little gold band
          from the other hand, pushed down over it.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I'll take very good care of it, and polish it before I
          give it back to you," she assured him.
        </p>
        <p>
          He answered her on a sudden boyish impulse.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I don't want you to give it back to me. You're to keep
          it.... It can be your wishing ring that you said I
          brought you, Joy."
        </p>
        <p>
          She smiled down at it, loose on her finger.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Why, so it is&#8212;my wishing ring!" she sighed
          happily. She turned it about her finger, and he saw her
          lips move. She was wishing. He wondered what, but she did
          not offer to tell him.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I wish that he may have the thing he wants the very most
          in all the world," she was saying fervently under her
          breath. When she was done she rose from the leaves, and
          he sprang up beside her.
        </p>
        <p>
          "There's one more ceremony," he told her, half-amusedly.
          "Even for a four days' engagement, to make it
          <i>quite</i> legal&#8212;" He bent toward her, smiling.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Oh&#8212;oh, should we?" stammered Joy, her wild-rose
          color deepening to rose-red.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I really think we should," said John solemnly. It was
          the nearest to teasing any one he had come for a long
          time, and he found himself rather enjoying it. Besides,
          in his heart lurked the feeling that the child ought to
          realize that she might have let herself in for a good
          deal, if she hadn't fallen into merciful hands. He was a
          little ashamed of himself at the sweet way she took it.
          She merely held herself quite still and serious, and
          lifted her face a little.
        </p>
        <p>
          John was a young man who always went through with
          anything he had begun, and he bent over and kissed Joy,
          very lightly.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I'm sorry," he said.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I&#8212;I didn't mind," said Joy, trying to make him
          happy, for she saw he was sorry, though she didn't know
          why or what for.
        </p>
        <p>
          "You dear child!" he said. "Well, I won't do it again. I
          was teasing you, and I shouldn't. Come, we ought to go
          now."
        </p>
        <p>
          She fell into step beside him, still mystified, but very
          much obliged to him in general, and they went back to the
          bungalow and congratulations side by side.
        </p>
        <p>
          Meanwhile two very much surprised young people confronted
          two still perturbed old ones in the sunset on Phyllis'
          veranda.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Now <i>why</i> do you suppose," Allan demanded of the
          world in general, "Johnny didn't break the news to us?
          I've rarely known a man who liked secrets less. He hasn't
          even come over and looked radiant with his mouth shut, as
          a normal human being would."
        </p>
        <p>
          Phyllis picked up Angela and gazed over her head as she
          considered. She had a way of using Angela as most women
          do knitting or embroidery: as something to have in her
          hands when she wanted to think.
        </p>
        <p>
          "It was certainly a case of very silent emotion," she
          said contemplatively.
        </p>
        <p>
          "What was there a case of, Mother?" demanded Philip,
          reappearing, very dusty, and climbing up on all of her
          that Angela didn't occupy, thereby damaging fatally the
          spotlessness of her crinkled white silk skirt. "Is it
          something to eat? Did Johnny bring&#8212;"
        </p>
        <p>
          "Johnny brought the rather surprising news that he and
          Joy are going to be married," his mother informed him,
          kissing the back of his neck. She spoke to him, as she
          always did, in a manner entirely unedited for children.
          If he didn't always know the long words, as she said, so
          much the better&#8212;his growing intelligence was
          stretched a little hunting them up.
        </p>
        <p>
          The growing intelligence was certainly excited now.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Married?" inquired Philip indignantly, voicing the
          feelings of the entire party. "Well, I think it would of
          been politer to have let us know before they spoke to
          each other about it!"
        </p>
        <p>
          It was no time to feed either of the children, and their
          nurse would have been horrified, but Allan produced a box
          of marshmallows from behind a jardini&egrave;re before
          anything more was said.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Here, my dear son," he said politely. "You deserve them
          for saying that. 'Them's our sentiments,' too, only we
          hadn't quite decided how to put it. Now go off and die
          happily, and only give Angela two."
        </p>
        <p>
          Philip returned thanks automatically, clutched the box
          and fled before any one should interfere to revoke this
          wonderful gift from Heaven. Angela wriggled her small,
          blue-overalled body down and went in passionate pursuit.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Now, you mustn't worry about it," Phyllis said to Mrs.
          Havenith, rising with one of her swift, graceful
          movements and putting both arms about the disconsolate
          old lady. "John Hewitt is one of the best men I ever
          knew. He's a rock of defense. Indeed, you may trust him
          with Joy. Allan has known him since they were in college
          together, and he has been our closest friend since our
          marriage. He's&#8212;why, he's nearly as nice as Allan,
          and that's saying all I <i>can</i> say. Isn't he, Allan?"
        </p>
        <p>
          "As nice as I am?" said Allan, laughing and coming nearer
          to them. "That would be difficult, you know, Phyllis!
          But, seriously, Mrs. Havenith," he went on more gravely,
          "you can trust Hewitt to make Joy very happy. He's one of
          the best fellows I ever knew. And he is amply able to
          take care of Joy, if that is worrying you."
        </p>
        <p>
          "He's perfectly adorable to his mother, too," Phyllis
          interposed; "and she's that marvelous thing, a mother who
          wishes her son would marry. You don't know what a lot
          there is in that!"
        </p>
        <p>
          "True," said Allan teasingly, in a tone too low for any
          one but his wife to hear; "it can't be carried too far,
          as I have reason to know."
        </p>
        <p>
          Phyllis had been rather unusually her mother-in-law's
          choice&#8212;indeed, the late Mrs. Harrington had done a
          good deal more in the business than she had any right to,
          and only Phyllis' own sweetness and common sense and the
          fact that Allan and Phyllis fell in love after their
          marriage had justified what old Mrs. Harrington did in
          the case. And when it did turn out properly she was not
          there to see, having died as soon as she had gotten her
          son (who was then, as every one thought, hopelessly
          paralyzed) safely married.
        </p>
        <p>
          Phyllis broke off to say swiftly, under her breath, "I'll
          be even with you for that, Allan Harrington!" and went on
          trying to console the Haveniths; for poor Mr. Havenith
          sat, dignified and forlorn, trying to look perfectly
          omniscient and satisfied and not succeeding a bit.
        </p>
        <p>
          After repeated assurances the Haveniths seemed a little
          happier, and went back to their bungalow to dress for
          dinner. The Harringtons sank back in their chairs with a
          sigh of relief apiece.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I don't care if Philip eats every marshmallow on earth,
          I'm not going to stir till I've talked it over with you,
          Allan," said his wife determinedly.
        </p>
        <p>
          She looked so pretty as she said it that Allan rose from
          his chair, tipped her chin back and kissed her.
        </p>
        <p>
          "So she should gossip if she wanted to," he told her
          teasingly, dropping back into his own chair before she
          could object, if she had wanted to. "Go on, my dearest;
          say all the things you wouldn't say before the Haveniths.
          I'm perfectly safe."
        </p>
        <p>
          "Yes, thank goodness, you are," acknowledged his wife.
          "Telling you things is like dropping them down a deep
          black well, which is a great comfort to a confiding
          person like myself. Well, then, if you insist on knowing
          what my lower nature thinks of this performance, it's my
          opinion that Joy and Johnny both ought to have their ears
          boxed. I don't believe in corporal punishment as a rule,
          but if there ever was a time for it&#8212;"
        </p>
        <p>
          "In Philip's words," suggested her husband, "it would
          have been politer to have told us before they made up
          their minds!"
        </p>
        <p>
          Phyllis laughed.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I confess I rather agree with him," she said. "It was a
          little shock. Just the same, I never came across any one
          sweeter or prettier or more attractive than Joy, and it
          certainly is a comfort to know that John's wife will be
          some one I can be friends with without a struggle. You
          never <i>can</i> tell what a man's going to marry."
        </p>
        <p>
          Allan arose and walked up and down meditatively, his
          golden-brown eyes fixed on the dulling sunset. He had
          spent several of his years lying on his back, as the
          result of an automobile accident in his early youth, and
          since he had been given back the use of his limbs he
          never kept still unnecessarily. He had arrears to make
          up, he said.
        </p>
        <p>
          Phyllis watched him striding back and forth, tall and
          graceful, and forgot all about Joy's love-affairs. For
          the moment, watching his grace of movement lovingly, she
          was back in the days that had seemed so happy then, but
          were so much less happy than these, when they had had
          their first glad certainty that he would entirely
          recover. It had taken less than six months from the time
          he first stood, before he could walk easily, and another
          six before he could go back to horseback&#8212;tennis and
          swimming had been later still. It seemed sometimes to
          them both as if it had all been a dream, so active and
          untiring he was now.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Heaven <i>has</i> been good to us," she said
          irrelevantly, but earnestly, looking up at him.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Heaven's been good to me, I know," Allan said tenderly.
          "I have the best and sweetest girl in the world to spend
          my life with me..."
        </p>
        <p>
          "John would disagree with you," said Phyllis, smiling up
          at him nevertheless, and flushing. "Allan, did it strike
          you that John would have been just as well pleased if Joy
          <i>hadn't</i> broken the news to Grandfather right then?"
        </p>
        <p>
          "Johnny's like Talleyrand; you'd never know it from his
          expression if some one kicked him from behind.... Not
          that I'd like to be the kicker."
        </p>
        <p>
          "So if he looked surprised, which he certainly did,"
          pursued Phyllis decisively, "he was <i>quite</i>
          surprised, not to say upset."
        </p>
        <p>
          "Oh, not as bad as all that," said Allan, who was not
          given to analysis. "I say, Phyllis, we really ought to go
          off and see if the children aren't dying under a tree
          somewhere."
        </p>
        <p>
          "They are not," said the children's mother firmly. "You
          know Angela is much more under Philip's thumb than she is
          yours or mine or Viola's, and he's a martinet where she's
          concerned. She'll never get more than her legal two
          marshmallows, and a boxful won't hurt <i>him</i>."
        </p>
        <p>
          "You're such a blessing, Phyllis," he answered
          irrelevantly. "Before the children came I used to wonder
          a little whether they wouldn't get in the way of my
          enjoyment of your society; but you didn't die and turn
          into a mother one bit. You've just added it on, like a
          sensible girl."
        </p>
        <p>
          "Well, of course I'm attached to the babies," said
          Phyllis, who would have died cheerfully for either of
          them, "but you'd naturally come first. And they're much
          happier than if I were one of those professional mothers
          who can't discuss anything but croup.... Allan, it's time
          we began putting up triumphal arches. Here they are."
        </p>
        <p>
          Allan began to whistle "Here Comes the Bride" softly and
          profanely under his breath, as Joy and John Hewitt neared
          them, but Phyllis managed to stop him before he was
          audible.
        </p>
        <p>
          "She <i>is</i> a darling, isn't she?" Phyllis whispered,
          as she stood on the steps with one hand on Allan's arm.
          "Look at her, Allan&#8212;she looks like a strong little
          Rossetti angel! Oh, I'm so glad it's happened!"
        </p>
        <p>
          She ran impulsively down the steps to greet them, her
          hands outstretched.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I <i>am</i> so glad!" she said sincerely. "I don't
          believe anything nicer could have happened, even if we
          <i>weren't</i> notified!" She put one arm around Joy,
          giving the unoccupied other hand to John Hewitt. "And I
          think it's specially nice of you to stay with me instead
          of with Mrs. Hewitt, my dear."
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy looked up at Hewitt appealingly. She was already
          beginning to feel that he was to be depended on to see
          her through things.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I think Mother will want her innings sooner or later,"
          he said. "But we haven't really told either of you all
          about it. You shall have the whole thrilling tale in the
          train. Suspend judgment on us both till then, please."
        </p>
        <p>
          "Oh, there isn't any judgment," Phyllis answered gaily.
          "You needn't try to get out of your engagement on our
          account, either of you. The Harrington family registers
          entire satisfaction, doesn't it, Allan?"
        </p>
        <p>
          "We're both awfully glad, old man," said Allan for his
          part.
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy wondered, her heart beating with excitement, if they
          would mind very much when they heard the truth.... But
          such kind people as the Harringtons couldn't be very
          angry!
        </p>
        <p>
          She was beginning to feel irrevocably engaged.... Never
          mind&#8212;John Hewitt would see her through. She looked
          up at him, and he smiled down on her.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Let's all have dinner sent over here," suggested Phyllis
          brilliantly, "to celebrate. We'll have Viola go over to
          the hotel for your grandparents."
        </p>
        <p>
          But Grandfather, it appeared, had gone to bed to rest
          from his excitement, and Grandmother, of course, was
          staying with him. So the four of them ate together in the
          little green living-room of the bungalow, talking and
          laughing happily. Joy, between Allan and John, spoke very
          little. But she felt so contented and so in the midst of
          things that she did not need to talk. She gleamed and
          shone like a jewel or a flower, smiling and answering
          happily when she was addressed: and John, looking at her,
          felt that his four days' protectorate was going to be
          perfectly simple and easy to endure.
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p><a name="ch05"><!--Marker--></a>
        <h2>
          CHAPTER FIVE
        </h2>
        <h3>
          THE SHADOW OF GAIL
        </h3>
        <p>
          Joy spent most of the next morning talking to her
          grandparents&#8212;at least, they talked and she
          listened. Grandmother, now that the first shock was over,
          took the news with the same sweet and patient acceptance
          of people's behavior that forty-five years' sojourn among
          poets had taught her. The fact that Edith and Grace
          Carpenter were John Hewitt's aunt and mother appeared to
          comfort her a great deal. It made her feel less that Joy
          was marrying into a strange tribe.
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy was pleased that this gave her grandmother relief. It
          was not till the day of departure that she discovered
          what awful thing more had been the result of the
          friendship. Indeed, it could have occurred to nobody,
          although, as John and she agreed afterwards, anybody
          <i>should</i> have seen what was going to happen!
        </p>
        <p>
          For the remaining days at the mountain inn there was
          little excitement. Joy kept close to Phyllis or her
          grandmother, and John enjoyed himself in what struck the
          Harringtons as being rather too much his usual way. It
          seemed to them that a little scheming to see Joy alone
          would have been more appropriate. But neither Phyllis nor
          Allan were given to being relentlessly tactful, or
          planning situations for people. They reasoned that if the
          others really wanted
          <i>t&ecirc;te-&agrave;-t&ecirc;tes</i> they could manage
          them without help; and doubtless would, once they were in
          the country. So peace and unruffledness reigned in a way
          that was most surprising, considering the real facts of
          the case. They continued, even in Joy's mind, till almost
          the last minute, when she stood on the platform of the
          resort station with Phyllis, Allan, John, the children,
          Viola, and the bulldog, awaiting their train.
        </p>
        <p>
          Philip was having to be cheered and distracted: his
          tender heart was nearly broken over the fact that his
          beloved Foxy had to travel in the baggage-car, when he
          would have been so much happier in the bosom of his
          family. Philip could not be restrained from pleading the
          dog's cause at length with a fatherly baggageman whose
          heart he had quite won in four minutes.
        </p>
        <p>
          "He has a green-plush chair at home that he <i>always</i>
          sits in, and nobody takes it away from him, not even
          company," he explained earnestly. "He isn't used to
          baggage-cars&#8212;truly he isn't. He's a
          wonderful-mannered dog. And father says that if he lived
          up to his pedigree he wouldn't 'sociate wiv <i>any</i> of
          us. You can <i>see</i> he doesn't belong in a
          baggage-car!"
        </p>
        <p>
          The baggageman, melted by Philip's ardent pleadings, was
          yielding to the extent of letting Foxy's family sit with
          him in relays and cheer him as much as they liked, when
          Grandmother dropped her bombshell. At least, that was
          what John called it when they talked it over afterwards.
          Joy always spoke of it as "the time Grandmother said the
          awful thing."
        </p>
        <p>
          "Good-by, my little girl," she said. "I know Grace
          Carpenter's boy can't but be good to you. And,
          darling&#8212;she asked me to keep it for a
          surprise&#8212;I only heard this morning&#8212;but I know
          surprises aren't always pleasant&#8212;and you're so
          young, you need to be prepared. Grace wrote me she was
          greatly surprised by the news, though I'm sure she
          needn't have expected to be told if we weren't&#8212;but
          she was very sweet about it, and is giving a dance to all
          the nice people in Wallraven for you. It's set for the
          evening after you get there. She tells me she has
          arranged the invitations already, in a way that makes the
          short notice seem all right. Grace was always so
          ingenious.... Oh, there's the train&#8212;good-by,
          darling! Be a good girl!"
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy was aghast.
        </p>
        <p>
          "<i>Grandmother!</i>" she began. "Oh, Grandmother. I have
          to tell you! ... I&#8212;oh, John, tell her! I can't go!
          I&#8212;"
        </p>
        <p>
          She turned to Hewitt despairingly. But he had not been
          listening: he had been watching the argument between
          Philip and the baggageman.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Hurry, Joy, train's coming," was all he said, and caught
          her arm, whisking her aboard.
        </p>
        <p>
          She pulled back, but that made no difference. He had her
          established in a seat, with what Phyllis called his
          "genial medical relentlessness," in spite of her appeals.
        </p>
        <p>
          "But I <i>can't</i> go!" she protested weakly from her
          seat, as the train pulled out of the station.
        </p>
        <p>
          "But, you see, you have," was John's placidly
          unanswerable reply, as he stowed his light overcoat on
          the rack above them and laid her coat over that with
          maddening precision. He smiled at her protectingly.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Why, my dear child, what made you lose your nerve that
          way at the last minute?"
        </p>
        <p>
          Then Joy understood that he had not heard the blow fall.
        </p>
        <p>
          If it had been anybody but John she would have been much
          more embarrassed than she was, but by now she had come
          unconsciously to feel that when things went wrong John
          was the natural person to come to. He could always help
          her through them.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Grandmother told me&#8212;" she began, then stopped. It
          was pretty hard to tell, after all.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Go on," he told her encouragingly. "Grandmother told you
          what?"
        </p>
        <p>
          "She told me that she wrote your mother, and your mother
          said&#8212;she said she wished we'd told her; but,
          anyway, she's sent out invitations for a big
          party&#8212;to meet <i>me</i>!"
        </p>
        <p>
          It all came with a rush. She didn't dare to meet John's
          eyes after she had said it.
        </p>
        <p>
          She heard his long, low whistle of astonishment, scarcely
          suppressed in time, and a lower, but quite as fervent,
          "Great Scott!" and then silence. It was not for a full
          minute that she dared look in the direction of his chair,
          which he had swung away when she had told him. She gave
          one quick glance, then another longer one. She could not
          see his face, but his shoulders were shaking.... Had it
          moved him so?
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy was used, at Grandfather's, to hear of people being
          "moved."
        </p>
        <p>
          "I didn't think John was the kind of a man to have
          emotions outside of him that way," she thought a little
          disappointedly, "but I suppose an awful thing like
          this&#8212;"
        </p>
        <p>
          About then he turned himself toward her. He was laughing!
        </p>
        <p>
          "Do you think it's funny?" she demanded.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Funny?" replied John Hewitt, still laughing desperately,
          and trying quite as desperately to do it quietly enough
          to prevent the descent of the others, wanting to know
          what he was laughing at. "I think it's one of the
          funniest things that ever happened. Talk about
          Nemesis&#8212;if ever a punishment fitted the crime, this
          does!"
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy sighed relievedly. At least, he wasn't being angry
          about it, and he might very well have been. She glanced
          out the window, which, like the windows of most New
          England cars in summer, had evidently been closed ever
          since John Hancock died, and glued in place. Then
          suddenly the thing struck her as funny, too. They were in
          for it, and by their own act. She began to laugh with
          him, quite forgetting that she had more explanations
          before her, and as a really honorable girl had no
          alternative but going back to Grandmother with her sins
          on her head.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Oh, it <i>is</i> ridiculous," she gasped. "I feel as if
          I'd kidnapped you and couldn't dispose of you.... We
          really must stop laughing, or the others will come down
          on us to know what we're laughing at."
        </p>
        <p>
          "You won't be able to dispose of me till the visit's
          over, at any rate," John answered her, sobering a little.
          "My mother and your grandmother have settled that for us
          effectually."
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy sat bolt upright and faced him.
        </p>
        <p>
          "You mean you're going to let it go on?"
        </p>
        <p>
          "Why, of course I'm going to let it go on," said he
          matter-of-factly. "What else can we do about it?"
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy's heart gave a spring of happiness. She wouldn't miss
          her visit, after all!
        </p>
        <p>
          "We can find out that we don't like each other, and break
          off the day you go home. I'll come back from the train
          very sad," he told her.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Thank you <i>very</i> much," she said happily. "I
          thought I was going to have to confess to every one and
          go back to Grandmother. I'm very glad I needn't."
        </p>
        <p>
          "You poor kiddie!" he said, as he had said the first time
          he met her. "Well, on this particular point all you have
          to do is remember what Beatrice Fairfax says, 'Never
          explain and never confess, and you'll be respected and
          admired by all.'"
        </p>
        <p>
          "It sounds like getting admiration and respect under
          false pretenses," Joy answered doubtfully. But she
          dimpled as she said it and looked up sideways at John
          under her black eyelashes.
        </p>
        <p>
          The effect was so unexpected and pretty that it set John
          wondering why she didn't do it oftener. Suddenly a
          probable reason dawned on him. When John Hewitt
          discovered anything wrong it was his prompt habit to
          right it, and he did so now.
        </p>
        <p>
          "See here, child, I can't have you being afraid of me,"
          he said peremptorily. "When I told you I was a trial
          fianc&eacute;, I didn't mean that I was to be less of a
          fianc&eacute; than a trial. If we're going to be
          theoretically engaged for a month, we'll have to be
          friends, at least, and friends trust each other, and know
          they can ask each other to do anything they want. They
          know, too, that they never need be afraid of either being
          angry at the other."
        </p>
        <p>
          "Then I'm to take it for granted that you feel as
          friendly toward me as I do toward you?" she asked.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Why, naturally," he answered. "That's friendship."
        </p>
        <p>
          "It sounds much nicer than anything I ever heard about in
          my life," said Joy enthusiastically. "But&#8212;are you
          sure I'm not the one that's going to be more of a trial
          than a fianc&eacute;? I&#8212;I don't want to be a
          bother, you know."
        </p>
        <p>
          "If you are, I'll tell you," he promised.
        </p>
        <p>
          "All right," said Joy contentedly, "and I promise not to
          have my feelings hurt a bit."
        </p>
        <p>
          She felt quite unafraid of him by now, as he had
          intended, for they had been talking together as if they
          were exactly the same age&#8212;or, rather, Joy thought,
          as if nobody had any age at all.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Do you know," she told him confidentially, "I <i>did</i>
          want a lover, back there at home. A real one, I mean. I
          saw a girl with one, and you could tell there wasn't
          anything on earth so nice as being lovers. But this is
          lots better&#8212;all the nice part of it and none of the
          stupid part&#8212;for I suppose they were going to be
          married."
        </p>
        <p>
          John looked at her curiously.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Joy, did you never have a friend of your own age, or any
          companions but those old people of yours?"
        </p>
        <p>
          She shook her head, smiling.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Never any."
        </p>
        <p>
          "That accounts for you, I suppose," said he with a sigh,
          which puzzled Joy very much. She had accepted as gospel
          John's order not to be afraid of him; and she was talking
          to him as if he were confidant, father and sister, all in
          one. That it might be treatment a very attractive man
          wasn't used to never dawned on her, because she had
          nothing to check up by.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Do I need accounting for?" she inquired, with another of
          the sidelong smiling glances he approved of.
        </p>
        <p>
          She really wanted to know, but she was so contented with
          life as it was then that she did not feel particularly
          distressed over it. Her trial lover took another look at
          her and decided that perhaps she didn't need to be
          accounted for, after all. She was wearing the little
          golden-brown suit she clung to, with its little cap to
          match, and her cheeks were flushed with the heat of that
          September day. It was as interesting to watch her develop
          one and another little way, he decided, as it would have
          been to observe an intelligent child.
        </p>
        <p>
          That there was some slight difference in his mind between
          her and a bona fide intelligent child was proved by that
          fact that he would just as lief that Philip had not
          interrupted them just then: though the interruption was
          done with all Philip's natural grace.
        </p>
        <p>
          He was mussed and rather dusty, and the front of his blue
          Oliver Twist suit bore an unmistakable paw-mark on its
          bosom.
        </p>
        <p>
          "John," he said earnestly, "if you don't hurry, Foxy will
          have been alone quite a while. Mother says I mustn't stay
          wiv him any longer, and he doesn't seem to think brakemen
          is people a bit."
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy gave a little gurgle of laughter. It reminded her of
          Mr. James Arthur Gosport and how he loved brakemen. How
          shocked he would have been at the pedigreed Foxy! She
          began to tell John about it, then stopped herself.
        </p>
        <p>
          "But you want to go and sit with the dog," she said, as
          they laughed over it; for Philip was standing, silent and
          reproachful, till John should do his duty by the beloved
          animal.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I don't want to a bit," said John frankly, "but I
          suppose my reputation with Foxy demands it."
        </p>
        <p>
          He rose reluctantly, quoting from the "Bab Ballads":
        </p>
        <p>
          <br>
          &nbsp;&nbsp; "<i>My own convenience counts as</i>
          nil:<br>
          &nbsp;&nbsp; <i>It is my duty, and I will!</i>"
        </p>
        <p>
          "Come out on the rear platform," said Phyllis, joining
          Joy as she stared after the tall figure and the little
          one passing out of the car. "It's the only cool spot. I
          suppose in the smoking car, where Allan is, the windows
          are open, but this place is too hot to live in. I wonder
          if there's any blue-law that forbids opening chair-car
          windows. I always forget to tell Allan to get day-coach
          tickets on this line, and it never occurs to him to do
          anything but perish in the parlor-cars, having been
          brought up in the lap of luxury. So we suffer on."
        </p>
        <p>
          Phyllis laughed as she led the way out to the little
          platform, and held to the rail with one hand, letting the
          wind sweep past her. She looked like anything but
          suffering.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Oh, isn't it one of the loveliest days that ever was!"
          she breathed, turning to Joy.
        </p>
        <p>
          "It's one of the loveliest times that ever was," Joy
          responded impulsively. "Oh, Phyllis, I'm so glad I met
          you!"
        </p>
        <p>
          "Glad you met John, dear child," Phyllis corrected. "So
          am I. Glad <i>I</i> met <i>you</i>, I mean, and
          particularly glad John did. We were all <i>so</i> afraid
          he was going to marry Gail Maddox. I think he was getting
          a little worried over it himself!"
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy looked up, startled.
        </p>
        <p>
          "You mean&#8212;he wasn't really thinking of marrying
          some one else?"
        </p>
        <p>
          Phyllis anchored her hat more securely, and smiled down
          out of the white cloud her veil made around the rose and
          blue and gold of her.
        </p>
        <p>
          "He seems principally to have been thinking, in his
          monumental silence, of marrying you. But Gail was
          certainly 'spoken of for the position.'"
        </p>
        <p>
          "Gail!" Joy murmured worriedly.
        </p>
        <p>
          She had never thought of this complication.
        </p>
        <p>
          Phyllis nodded.
        </p>
        <p>
          "She's as nice as possible, but everybody could see how
          fearfully they wouldn't fit&#8212;everybody, that is, but
          the parties concerned. Gail's one of those people who are
          always dashing about aimlessly, doing something because
          she didn't do it yesterday. And John's the kind of a
          man&#8212;well, you know the kind he is: dependable,
          authoritative, angel-kind, and deadly clever. He's not a
          <i>bit</i> like Allan," said Allan's wife, as if Allan
          were the standard pattern for men. "If I didn't adore
          Allan too much to be so mean, I could fool him a dozen
          times a day, and so could any woman. If it meant John's
          life I don't believe I could hoodwink him, any more than
          I could another girl. I suppose it comes from diagnosing
          cases."
        </p>
        <p>
          "We're almost at Wallraven, Phyllis," Allan spoke from
          behind them before Joy could answer. "Better come in and
          get your caravan in order."
        </p>
        <p>
          "Coming," said Phyllis simply; and went in to assort her
          babies.
        </p>
        <p>
          But Joy had seen the look that passed between the husband
          and wife, and it made her a little lonely for the moment.
          You could see that they belonged to each other, and how
          glad they were of it. And Joy&#8212;well, she was only
          somebody's pretend-sweetheart. Maybe nobody would ever
          look at her that way...
        </p>
        <p>
          She clasped her hands together as she always did when she
          thought hard, and felt the touch of her wishing ring. Her
          heart lightened, for she remembered how kind John had
          been to her. Surely he couldn't pretend to be so pleased
          about it if he weren't. And if there was another girl,
          why, she was only having John borrowed from her.
        </p>
        <p>
          "It won't hurt her a bit," Joy decided. "And if she
          really is flyaway, and all that, maybe a little anxiety
          will be good for her."
        </p>
        <p>
          In Joy's heart, too far down for her to find it herself,
          was a tiny bit of defiance, and the old, old feeling, "If
          she wants him, let her come and get him!" But she wasn't
          in the least aware of it, and went back to her seat
          feeling like an angel.
        </p>
        <p>
          She found there John, looking perfectly content with
          life, gathering up her belongings and his, and obviously
          expecting to make her his complete care. When John Hewitt
          took charge of anybody they were taken charge of all
          over; not fussily or so it was a nuisance, but just
          comfortably, so that every care vanished.
        </p>
        <p>
          They got off the train, into the peace and spaciousness
          of open country. The station was behind them, a little,
          neat stone station like a toy dropped down on the
          old-fashioned New England countryside. Joy caught her
          skirts clear of the car steps and descended, John
          guarding her. She smiled down at him before she sprang to
          the platform, and he smiled up at her. To any one not in
          the secret they seemed like as real lovers as possible.
        </p>
        <p>
          As Joy stood there, waiting a moment, she felt arms
          coming round her from behind, and, turning, startled, she
          found herself in the embrace of a tall, white-haired
          woman with John's kind steel-gray eyes and an
          impulsiveness not at all like John's.
        </p>
        <p>
          "This is the first chance I have ever had to kiss my
          daughter," said a swift, soft-noted voice&#8212;not at
          all like an old lady's&#8212;"and I've been wanting one
          for thirty-odd years. I'm John's mother, my dear, and I
          forgive you both on the spot for keeping me in the dark.
          I know just why John did it. He didn't want parties given
          over him, as he's always saying. But I've foiled him
          completely... My dear, he's picked me out exactly the
          sort of thing I wanted!"
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy kissed Mrs. Hewitt back willingly. This was just the
          kind of mother she had always wanted, too. She spoke out
          what she thought, before she thought.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Are you Grandmother's Grace Carpenter?" she asked. "Why,
          you're not a bit old!"
        </p>
        <p>
          Her mother-in-law laughed as she turned to greet her son,
          still holding fast to one of Joy's hands.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I know you don't like being kissed in public, Johnny,
          but you know I always do it, anyhow. You good boy, to
          actually tell her I liked having my first name used! He
          never would do it, you know, Joy, dear. Phyllis and
          Allan&#8212;where are those two? I have their motor,
          commandeered it to come down in. Mine had the fender
          bitten off by the village trolley last night.
          Oh&#8212;they're putting in the children."
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy had scarcely time to answer, but she let her
          mother-in-law sweep her along, and install her in the
          motor between herself and John, who was holding Angela
          because Angela insisted.
        </p>
        <p>
          As they sped down the country lanes Joy sat very still,
          trying to forget that this happy time would ever stop.
          Giving up John was bad enough&#8212;maybe he would be
          friends with her afterwards if she was lucky&#8212;but
          giving up John's mother seemed almost too much to ask of
          any girl.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I'm <i>sure</i> I'll never happen on a mother-in-law
          like this again!" thought Joy.
        </p>
        <p>
          "How's Gail, Mother?" she heard John ask quite calmly as
          they turned down another leafy lane.
        </p>
        <p>
          She flushed up, deep rose-red, as she listened for the
          answer.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Just back from the city, and more rambunctious than
          ever," said Mrs. Hewitt briskly.
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy clasped her hands over the wishing ring and looked
          off&#8212;anywhere&#8212;not to look at John or his
          mother. And in her anxiety she heard a husky whisper from
          the seat behind her, where Viola was restraining Philip
          and Foxy from jumping out into the landscape.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Don't you fear, honey. Mighty hard work getting a man
          away from a red-haired girl!"
        </p>
        <p>
          Where her courage came from Joy did not know. But as she
          heard Viola she sat up straight. And a light came into
          her eyes&#8212;the light of battle.
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p><a name="ch06"><!--Marker--></a>
        <h2>
          CHAPTER SIX
        </h2>
        <h3>
          ROSE GARDENS AND MEN
        </h3>
        <p>
          "You can come in by the front door, if you'd rather be
          grand," offered Phyllis, "but the only door we can coax
          the car anywhere near is the side one. And we had to cut
          that through."
        </p>
        <p>
          They halted at a contented-looking old Colonial house set
          far back from the country road. The grounds were large,
          and one whole side of them was shut off from the road by
          a high Sleeping Beauty sort of hedge that hid everything
          except one inquisitive red rose, sticking its head out
          between masses of box. The other side of the house was
          surrounded by a green lawn set with tall old trees. A
          tennis-court showed at the back, and closer by a
          red-banded croquet-mallet lay beneath a tree, with a red
          ball nestling to it. The whole place looked sunny and
          leisurely and happy and spacious and welcoming.
        </p>
        <p>
          As the motor, after teetering itself cautiously down a
          side path that had never in the world been made for
          motors, stopped, the side door Phyllis had referred to
          opened, and a beautiful white wolfhound sprang out and
          into the car, where he was welcomed tumultuously by the
          children, and greeted without undue enthusiasm by Foxy,
          whose disposition had not yet recovered from the baggage
          car.
        </p>
        <p>
          Every one piled out, and Philip and the dogs raced back
          into the house and to the greetings of a couple of
          half-visible colored servants.
        </p>
        <p>
          Phyllis, alighting more leisurely, turned, with the
          graciousness that was peculiarly hers, and smiled from
          the doorway at Joy.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Welcome, my dear," she said. "And I hope you'll never go
          away from our village for good again!"
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy's throat caught a little. She was only a pretender, a
          little visitor in this Abode of the Blest. But, anyway,
          the Abode of the Blest was here for a while, and she in
          it. She looked from Phyllis' kind, lovely face in the
          doorway to John, beside her on the step. His face was as
          kind as Phyllis' and as handsome in its grave way. For a
          month she was going to be happy with them, and she could
          save up enough happiness, maybe, for remembering through
          years of life in the twilight city house. She was here,
          and loved and free and young. Lots of people never got
          any happiness at all. Joy knew that from the way she
          heard them talk. They seemed to mean it usually. A whole
          month, then, was lots to the good. She would take every
          bit there was of it&#8212;yes, love and all!
        </p>
        <p>
          She put her two hands in Phyllis' impulsively, and kissed
          her as they went in. The others followed.
        </p>
        <p>
          Philip, gamboling rejoicingly about the house with his
          dear dogs, bounded toward her as she made her way toward
          the stairs.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I got something to ask you when you get your face washed
          and come down," he called to her. "'Member to 'mind me."
        </p>
        <p>
          "All right!" she called back heedlessly, as she followed
          Mrs. Hewitt up the wide, shallow-stepped staircase. Mrs.
          Hewitt seemed to have constituted herself a committee of
          welcome, and was accepted on all sides as being about to
          stay to dinner.
        </p>
        <p>
          All the rooms in the house were sunny, and at the window
          of Joy's there tapped a spray from a rambler rose. There
          was so much to see and hear and smell out the window that
          Joy had a hard time getting dressed. She put back on her
          gray silk. Grandmother had packed all the pretty
          picture-frocks for her, but she didn't feel as if she
          could stand wearing any of them yet; but she was
          beginning to think that these people supposed she had
          only two dresses. To tell the truth, she was getting a
          little tired of wearing first the gray and then the brown
          and then doing it over again. But she pinned the spray of
          roses that had tempted fate by sticking itself in her
          window, on the bosom of her dress, and ran down.
        </p>
        <p>
          She found that, much as she had looked out the window,
          she was earlier than the others. Phyllis and Allan were
          nowhere to be seen, and Mrs. Hewitt she knew was above
          stairs yet, because she had heard her singing to herself
          as she moved about the next room. Philip, exempted from
          an early bedtime by special dispensation and the
          knowledge that he wouldn't go to sleep this first night,
          anyway, was being wisely unobtrusive in a corner of the
          room, spelling out a fairy-book. The only other occupant
          of the room, Joy saw, was her trial fianc&eacute;.
        </p>
        <p>
          It was the first time she had been all alone with John
          since their talk in the wood. He had been sitting on the
          floor by Philip, explaining to him some necessary fact
          about the domestic habits of dragons. He made a motion to
          rise when she came in.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Oh, please don't get up!" she begged.
        </p>
        <p>
          She had been embarrassed when she first saw him, the only
          occupant of the room (for small children are most
          mistakenly supposed not to count); but, curiously enough,
          when she saw that he was a little embarrassed, too, her
          own courage rose, and she came over quite at her ease,
          sinking down at the other side of the convenient Philip.
        </p>
        <p>
          "You asked me to remind you of something you wanted to
          say to me, Philip," she said.
        </p>
        <p>
          Philip looked up from his book amiably.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Yes, there was," he said encouragingly, if somewhat
          vaguely. "Thank you for aminding me. I just wanted to
          find out&#8212;if you're sure you don't mind telling
          me&#8212;why you never make a fuss over John. You know,
          people that marry each other do. I saw two
          once&#8212;ever so long ago, but I know they did. Lots."
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy blushed, but when you've come to Arcady for only a
          month, and it really doesn't matter afterwards, you're
          very irresponsible.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Why, you see, Philip, the girl isn't supposed to start
          making the fusses. You'd better ask John about
          it&#8212;some other time&#8212;" she added hastily.
        </p>
        <p>
          But as she spoke she had to hold her lips hard to keep
          them straight, and looked out of the corner of one
          black-lashed eye at John, sitting at his ease on Philip's
          other side. She had never found him at a loss, and she
          desired, most unfairly, to see what he would do with this
          impertinence.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Why don't you, John?" inquired Philip inevitably.
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy had been so sure John would get out of it with his
          usual immovable poise that her own remarks hadn't
          occurred to her in the light of provocation. But Dr.
          Hewitt evidently looked at it that way, because what he
          said was quite terrifyingly simple:
        </p>
        <p>
          "If you'll move a little, Philip."
        </p>
        <p>
          Philip courteously shoved himself back on the floor from
          between them, and for the second time in her life Joy
          found herself being kissed by a man.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I didn't mean that you really <i>had</i> to start things
          right away," she heard Philip, dimly, explaining in a
          tone of courteous apology, "only when you wanted to, you
          know."
        </p>
        <p>
          "It's all right, old fellow," John assured him kindly. "I
          didn't mind."
        </p>
        <p>
          It was, indeed, quite a brotherly kiss, but even at
          that&#8212;and in the resigned way John had explained it
          there was little room for a girl's being
          excited&#8212;Joy felt a little dazed. But she didn't
          intend to let John see it. She had rented him for the
          month, so to speak, and, though it hadn't specially
          occurred to her, probably this sort of thing was all in
          the month's work... It was as near as the wishing ring
          could bring her to a real lover...
        </p>
        <p>
          She raised her surprising eyes to him demurely.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Thank you," she said with all apparent gratitude. "It
          was sweet of you to do that for Philip."
        </p>
        <p>
          There was no answer possible to that, as far as she knew.
        </p>
        <p>
          "You needn't say anything," she went on placidly, but
          with that spark of excited mischief still in her eyes.
          "Do you know, Dr. Hewitt, I'm getting to be much less
          afraid of you. You certainly have the <i>kindest</i>
          heart&#8212;&#8212;"
        </p>
        <p>
          Here the worm turned. He also got up off the floor, and
          stood over her, toweringly, as he answered.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I haven't a kind heart one bit," he said&#8212;and was
          there a certain sharpness in his voice?&#8212;"kissing
          you isn't at all hard&#8212;"
        </p>
        <p>
          "Compared to lots of messy things you have to do in the
          exercise of your profession?" finished Joy
          contemplatively, cocking her bronze head on one side, and
          looking up at him sweetly, her arms around her knees.
          "<i>I</i> know. I've read about them&#8212;I've read a
          lot. You have to give people blood out of your strong,
          bared right arm, and cure them of diphtheria, and scrub
          floors&#8212;oh, no, it's the nurses do that. 'A
          physician's life is <i>not</i> a happy one!'"
        </p>
        <p>
          She laughed, as he stood severely there above her. She
          had not realized before that she knew how to tease
          anybody, least of all the demigod who had rescued her
          from the shadows of the reception-halls at home. But his
          kissing her had done something to her&#8212;it always
          seemed to, she reflected&#8212;and his matter-of-fact
          explanation of it had exasperated her to the point of
          wanting to pay him back.
        </p>
        <p>
          "He might at least have <i>said</i> he liked it," she
          told herself petulantly. And then after she had laughed,
          she remembered that if he did anything too much&#8212;if
          she went too far&#8212;he could speak the word and send
          her flying out of fairyland... But he wouldn't do that.
          He was ever so much too noble, thank goodness!
        </p>
        <p>
          "People who are noble, really are a comfort," she said
          cheerfully, aloud. "Dr. Hewitt, if you don't mind, my
          spray of roses got caught in your coat. Of course, if you
          really want it&#8212;&#8212;"
        </p>
        <p>
          He detached the spray with something like a jerk and
          dropped it down into her lap.
        </p>
        <p>
          Really you could hardly blame a man for being annoyed a
          bit. To have a gentle, grateful little girl you had nobly
          helped, suddenly perk up and turn into something quite
          different&#8212;something dimpling and impish and
          provocative&#8212;would be disturbing to nearly any man.
        </p>
        <p>
          John had no means of knowing, of course, that Phyllis had
          said anything about Gail Maddox, though he might have
          remembered, at least, that Joy had red hair and was
          likely to have a little of the fire that goes with it. He
          looked at her all over again, as if there was somebody
          else sitting on the floor where little Joy Havenith had
          been&#8212;somebody rather surprising. He began to wonder
          about this young person, with a distinct interest.
        </p>
        <p>
          "We've found her!" announced Mrs. Hewitt, much to the
          surprise of the three in the dining-room, who had not
          lost anything.
        </p>
        <p>
          She and Phyllis came in with a triumphant air, and
          Angela. Angela was in Phyllis' arms, and adorably asleep,
          with her goldy-brown lashes on her pink cheeks and a look
          of angelhood in every round, relaxed curve.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Found her?" inquired John, turning from his position
          looking down at Joy. "Who was lost?"
        </p>
        <p>
          "Do you mean to say," Phyllis demanded, "that you didn't
          know we'd lost Angela for the last half-hour?"
        </p>
        <p>
          "Well, she got lost so very&#8212;er&#8212;noiselessly,"
          apologized John, "that it escaped our attention. But she
          doesn't look as if it had worn on her much," he added,
          brightening.
        </p>
        <p>
          "It didn't," Phyllis answered with an irrepressible
          laugh, "it wore on us! I expect Allan's still hunting the
          grounds over for her&#8212;he and the gardener. The
          gardener always uses a wooden rake with a pillow tied to
          its teeth."
        </p>
        <p>
          Allan entered at one of the long windows as she spoke.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Oh, you found her," he remarked. "I thought she wouldn't
          have been out of the house."
        </p>
        <p>
          "Where was she?" demanded Philip, John, and Joy in a
          polite chorus, surrounding the center of attraction, who
          slept on.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Under the guest-room bed," said Phyllis, putting her
          daughter down on a couch as she spoke, and going over to
          the table, where she struck the bell for soup, and sat
          down.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I crawled under," interjected Mrs. Hewitt proudly,
          looking every inch a duchess as she said it, "and there
          she was! She had eaten every bit of cheese from the set
          mousetrap under it; I forgot to tell you, Phyllis."
        </p>
        <p>
          "Good gracious!" said Phyllis as the rest sat down about
          the table.... "Well, if it hasn't hurt her so far, it
          mayn't at all. I'm not going to wake her out of a
          seraphic slumber like that just to ask her if she has a
          pain."
        </p>
        <p>
          "You don't let <i>me</i> eat cheese at night," said
          Philip aggrievedly here, looking up from his plate. "And
          I knew that mousetrap was there, and I never touched a
          scrap of it. It was set the day we went away from the
          chickenpox."
        </p>
        <p>
          "You're a very high-minded child," said his father
          soothingly.
        </p>
        <p>
          "And there's charlotte russe for your dessert, Master
          Philip," whispered the waitress: at which Philip forgot
          his wrongs and brightened visibly.
        </p>
        <p>
          The meal went on rather silently after this, because
          everybody was rather hungry. Philip grew drowsier and
          drowsier, till Viola stole in and led him away, "walking
          asleep." The grown people went on talking and laughing
          around the table.
        </p>
        <p>
          "With nobody to hush them so he could make a literary
          criticism," Joy thought happily.
        </p>
        <p>
          Mrs. Hewitt tore herself away with obvious reluctance,
          about ten or so, taking John with her. After that Phyllis
          said that she was sleepy, but not to let that make
          anybody else feel they had to be sleepy, too. Joy had
          been holding her eyelids up by main force for some time,
          because she hadn't wanted to miss any of the talk and
          laughter and delightful feeling of being grown up and in
          the midst of things. So she went up to bed, almost as
          drowsily as Philip had before her.
        </p>
        <p>
          Just as she was on the point of dropping off to sleep,
          with the wind blowing, flower-scented, across her face,
          she remembered something that made her sit bolt upright
          in bed and think. There was going to be a grand affair
          for her at Mrs. Hewitt's house the very next night, and
          she hadn't a blessed thing to wear! Nothing, that is, but
          five art-frocks which she had determined in her heart
          never to wear again. But&#8212;the wind among the trees
          was very soothing, and the wishing ring lay loose and
          heavy on her finger.
        </p>
        <p>
          "You'll look after it," Joy murmured drowsily to the
          ring, and went to sleep.
        </p>
        <p>
          Philip wakened her the next morning. He was very clean
          and rosy from a recent bath, and he was curled on the
          quilt at her feet, staring intently at her.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Did you know if you look hard at asleep folks' eyes they
          open?" he inquired affably. "You see they do. Yours did.
          Do you mind dogs on your bed, or Angela?"
        </p>
        <p>
          Philip was always so perfectly friendly that Joy was very
          much at ease with him, which had never been her case
          before with children. But, then, she had never met any
          intimately before. She reached out a slim white arm from
          beneath the covers and pulled him down and kissed
          him&#8212;an operation which he bore with his usual
          politeness.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I love dogs, and Angela," she told him. "And I don't
          mind them on the bed a bit, if your mother doesn't."
        </p>
        <p>
          Philip assumed a convenient deafness as to the last
          clause, and whistled, whereat his slaves, Ivan, the white
          wolfhound, Foxy, and Angela, all appeared joyously and
          dashed across the floor, scrambling enthusiastically up
          on the white counterpane. They were almost too many for
          one three-quarters bed, and Joy, on whom most of the
          happy family was sitting, could have wished the dogs a
          little lighter, even while she gave Angela a hand up.
          Angela scrambled up with intense earnestness and loud
          little pantings, and, finally seated on a pillow in
          triumph, smiled broadly and charmingly, her golden head
          cocked to one side.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Doggies went garden, 'is morning," she informed Joy,
          still smiling enchantingly. "Oo&#8212;a <i>big</i> hole!"
        </p>
        <p>
          "She means they dug a hole," Philip translated. "You
          can't always tell when she's making up things that aren't
          so; but this is. It's there now, with worms in it, and a
          rosebush that fell in. But I washed all their paws in the
          bathtub," he added hastily, "and Angela's frock-front.
          Didn't I, Angel?"
        </p>
        <p>
          "Fock-front!" said Angela, beaming and spatting herself
          happily in the region named.
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy cast a wild look around her. Foxy lay across her at
          her waist line&#8212;yes, there were paw-marks all over
          the counterpane, and Ivan, who seemed to have had more
          than his share of the cleansing, showed a distinct arc of
          wetness where his long body had lain at the foot of the
          bed.
        </p>
        <p>
          Philip, following her eyes, slid unobtrusively from her
          side.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I&#8212;I just thought you'd like to see the dogs, and
          the baby," he explained. "Most people do. Mother sent me
          to tell you it was nine o'clock, and would you like to
          get up?"
        </p>
        <p>
          He made no further references to paws or washings. He
          merely whistled again to Angela and the dogs, who were
          reluctant, but struggled obediently down from the
          counterpane, leaving, alas, distinct traces in all
          directions.
        </p>
        <p>
          "If you frow the covers back nobody'll see anything," he
          hinted from the doorway, and was gone.
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy did not take his hint. Instead, she pulled the
          counterpane off bodily and put it in the window to sun,
          and then went on dressing. Things were so cheerful and
          sunny and funny in this house.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Oh, John was right," she thought buoyantly, as she
          braided her ropes of hair. "Things do come right if you
          hope and wish and <i>know</i> they will!"
        </p>
        <p>
          The glitter of the ring caught her eyes, in the mirror,
          between the bronze ripples of hair, and it reminded her
          of one thing that was <i>not</i> settled: her frock for
          the evening, this wonderful evening when a party was
          going to be given for just her!
        </p>
        <p>
          She asked Phyllis about it as soon as breakfast&#8212;a
          somewhat riotous meal&#8212;was over. She was a little
          diffident, because she was sure that any sane grown-up
          person who was told that there were five good frocks you
          hated would tell you you should wear them. But Phyllis
          only suggested bringing them down and looking them over.
          So they did.
        </p>
        <p>
          "They all have queer things all over them that nobody
          else wears except illustrations in historical novels, and
          they're all of very good materials," said Joy sadly,
          laying them out one by one. "And there isn't one I don't
          hate to wear. But I never could explain that to
          Grandmother, of course."
        </p>
        <p>
          She looked at Phyllis with a wistful hope in her eyes.
          Phyllis thoughtfully lifted the yellow satin skirts of
          Joy's pet detestation.
        </p>
        <p>
          "This is a lovely material," she said thoughtfully. "Is
          it the color you don't like?"
        </p>
        <p>
          "N-no," Joy answered doubtfully. "It's the make." Then
          she burst out passionately. "I want to look frisky!" she
          declared. "I want to be dressed the way John's used to
          seeing girls. I&#8212;I want to look just as pretty and
          like folks as Gail Maddox!"
        </p>
        <p>
          She checked herself, flushing and biting her lip. She
          hadn't meant to say that!
        </p>
        <p>
          But Phyllis took it beautifully.
        </p>
        <p>
          "No reason why you shouldn't look just exactly like
          folks," she soothed. "This is lovely, too, this silver
          tissue. Goodness, what a lot of material there is in
          these angel sleeves!"... She held it up consideringly...
          "Wait a minute, Joy, I think I read my title clear." She
          ran out of the room, coming back in a moment with a
          life-size dress-form in her arms, which she set down.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Here's Dora, the dress-model," she said cheerfully. "She
          adjusts." In proof she began to screw Dora down and in to
          required proportions, measuring her by Joy, who watched
          operations with fascinated eyes.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I never knew you could sew," she said.
        </p>
        <p>
          "My father was a country minister," Mrs. Harrington
          explained, flinging the green frock, inside out, over the
          steely shoulders of Dora, the dress-frame. "I cook very
          nicely, if I do say it myself, and till I was seventeen I
          did every bit of my own sewing."
        </p>
        <p>
          "And were you married at seventeen?"
        </p>
        <p>
          "No," Phyllis answered, stopping a moment from her
          pinnings and speaking more gravely. "My father died then,
          and I went to work. I hadn't time to sew after
          that&#8212;I bought ready-made things. So when I
          <i>was</i> married&#8212;that was a long seven years
          afterwards&#8212;I did have such lovely times buying
          organdies and laces and things and cutting them out and
          making them! That was the summer Allan was getting well."
        </p>
        <p>
          She stared off at the wall for a moment, as she knelt up
          against the green satin. "That was the loveliest summer I
          ever had&#8212;excepting every one since."
        </p>
        <p>
          She laughed a little, then prevented herself from further
          speech by putting a frieze of pins in her mouth and
          beginning to do something with the dress with them, one
          by one.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Do you mind cutting into this?" she asked when that row
          was gone.
        </p>
        <p>
          "The more the better!" said Joy with enthusiasm.
        </p>
        <p>
          "It will make a stunning frock, with the silver net
          draped over the pale-green satin... M'm. That silver
          iridescent girdle on the other dress&#8212;the
          violet&#8212;can I have that, too?"
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy ripped and handed with tremulously eager hands, while
          Phyllis swiftly cut away the sleeves of the green dress
          and slashed a <i>d&eacute;colletage</i>, and draped the
          net over it and pinned on the girdle.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Try if you can get into that without being scratched,"
          she invited, lifting the frock gingerly off Dora and
          dropping it over Joy. Then she wheeled her around to
          where she could see her reflection in the tall pier-glass
          between the windows.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Of course, that's rough," she told her; "but what do you
          think of it, generally? Are there any changes you want?"
        </p>
        <p>
          "Oh, not one!" Joy replied ecstatically, regarding the
          slim little green and silver figure in the glass.
        </p>
        <p>
          "It needs to be shorter," meditated Phyllis aloud, and
          fell to pinning it up to the proper shortness.
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy continued to look at it rapturously. It had been a
          straight, long gown, and all Phyllis had needed to do was
          to drape it with the net ripped from the other dress and
          shorten and cut it into fashionableness. It was
          charming&#8212;springlike and becoming, and, best of all,
          strictly up to date!
        </p>
        <p>
          "Don't you think you'll feel equal to being the feature
          of the reception in that?" demanded Phyllis. "I certainly
          should in your place.... That is, if you have silver
          slippers."
        </p>
        <p>
          "I have, and I think I do," said Joy gravely.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Then I'll hand this over to Viola to put the finishing
          stitches in. Look out the window&#8212;do you see
          anything familiar coming up the path?"
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy, in her pinned finery, looked, then snatched her
          clothes from the sofa, where they lay in state, and ran
          upstairs. John was coming along the path, and she didn't
          want him to know about her frock till it was all done.
        </p>
        <p>
          She came down a moment later, brown-clad and demure, and
          looking so young and harmless that any man would have
          been sure his tilt with her, of the night before, was a
          dream. She greeted him shyly, with her lashes down.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Isn't&#8212;isn't it a little early for you to be away
          from your patients?" she asked.
        </p>
        <p>
          "My morning office hours are just over, and I'm on my way
          to make some calls in the car. Want to come?" he asked.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Thank you," said Joy. "That is, if you don't think I'd
          be in the way."
        </p>
        <p>
          "If I thought you would be I wouldn't have asked you,"
          said Dr. Hewitt matter-of-factly. "So run along and pin
          up your hair, child. I don't want people to think I've
          been robbing the cradle."
        </p>
        <p>
          He smiled at her in a brotherly fashion, and Joy began to
          feel a little ashamed of herself for trying to tease him,
          even if he didn't seem to see it. She liked him so much,
          apart from any other feeling, that it was hard to be
          anything but nice and grateful to him&#8212;except when
          she thought of Gail Maddox.
        </p>
        <p>
          "It just takes two hairpins," she informed him, coming
          over to him and holding up the ends of her braids. "You
          wind it round and pin it behind."
        </p>
        <p>
          He took the hairpins and the braids, and quite deftly did
          as she asked him to.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Hurry, my dear," he said authoritatively, yet with a
          certain note of affection in his voice that made Joy feel
          very comforted. As she flew to get her cap her heart gave
          a queer, pleasant sort of turn-over. His voice made her
          feel so belonging.
        </p>
        <p>
          She sang as she went, and Phyllis and John smiled across
          at each other, as over a dear child.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Oh, John, I'm so glad you chose such a darling!" said
          Phyllis warmly, putting her hands on his shoulders, as "A
          Perfect Day" floated back to them from above. "You know,
          Johnny, even the best of men do marry so&#8212;so
          surprisingly. She might have been&#8212;"
        </p>
        <p>
          "'She might have been a Roosian, or French or Dutch or
          Proosian,'" he quoted frivolously. "Well, Phyllis, I'm
          glad you approve of my&#8212;ah&#8212;choice. How long do
          you think it will take it to get its hat on?"
        </p>
        <p>
          "Oh, you can laugh," Phyllis answered him, "but I know
          you're proud of her, just the same."
        </p>
        <p>
          "Well, she's creditable," said John unemotionally, but
          with a little smile beginning to show at the corners of
          his mouth.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I'm ready!" called Joy breathlessly from the top of the
          stairs, and ran down tumultuously. "Oh, Phyllis, can't I
          have some roses to take to John's sick people&#8212;the
          poor ones? I want them to like me!"
        </p>
        <p>
          "Help yourself." Phyllis granted promptly.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Not a bit of it." John contradicted her coolly. "You
          must teach them to love you for yourself alone. Come on,
          kiddie."
        </p>
        <p>
          He tucked her hand under his arm and hurried her,
          laughing, down the drive. Phyllis ran after them with a
          too-late-remembered motor-veil, which she managed to
          convey into the car by the risky method of tying a stone
          in it and throwing the stone. It just missed John, and
          Joy nearly fell out, turning to wave thanks for it.
        </p>
        <p>
          John threw his arm around her hastily to hold her in, and
          so Phyllis saw them out of sight.
        </p>
        <p>
          "You needn't do that any more," observed Joy as they sped
          on. "There's nobody can see us now."
        </p>
        <p>
          "That, with most people," observed John amusedly, "would
          be a reason for continuing to do it."
        </p>
        <p>
          "M'm," said Joy in assent, as he removed his arm. "You
          see," she went on rather apologetically, "I never was
          engaged before, not even this much, and I probably shan't
          always do it right.... Do you think I shall?"
        </p>
        <p>
          "Very well, indeed," answered her trial fianc&eacute;
          dryly. "I have always heard that when you were engaged to
          a girl she took the opportunity to torment you as
          thoroughly as possible. But I haven't any more personal
          experience of the holy bonds of affiancement than you
          have, my dear child."
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy's heart suddenly reproached her for having teased
          such a kind person as this at all. She clutched his arm
          with such impulsive suddenness that the car almost left
          the road.
        </p>
        <p>
          "John, I do want to be good to you! And I want to be as
          little trouble as possible! And I want to have you
          <i>like</i> me . . . and respect and admire me just the
          way that&#8212;"
        </p>
        <p>
          "Just what way?" he inquired more gently.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Never mind what way," Joy told him, coloring hotly.
          "Only if you'll please tell me what to do&#8212;it's hard
          to say, but I'll try to explain what I mean. Haven't you
          always thought, just a little, when you hadn't anything
          else to think of, that sometime there'd be&#8212;a girl?"
        </p>
        <p>
          John Hewitt looked straight before him for a moment, as
          the car sped smoothly down a country lane. Then he
          nodded.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Yes," he said, and no more. He was not given to talking
          about his feelings.
        </p>
        <p>
          "And you planned her&#8212;a little&#8212;didn't you?"
          Joy persisted. "I know you did&#8212;people do. Well...
          John&#8212;couldn't you tell me a little bit about how
          <i>She</i> was going to act&#8212;so I could act that
          way? It would be more comfortable for you, I think. And
          I&#8212;I want to."
        </p>
        <p>
          For a moment she thought he was not going to answer at
          all. He looked down at her silently. Then he spoke, a
          little abruptly.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I never planned her in much detail," he said. "She
          always seemed to be dressed in blue, or in white, and her
          hair was parted. She seemed to be connected with a
          fireplace," he ended inconsequently, and laughed a little
          at himself. "You see, I'm not an imaginative person."
        </p>
        <p>
          "I only wanted you to let me play I was that girl for
          this month," Joy answered desperately, with her eyes
          down, speaking very low.
        </p>
        <p>
          John, who had been staring down at her in a half-puzzled
          way, looked as if he was suddenly reassured that she was
          only a little girl, after all&#8212;not a provoking
          firefly, but a wistful, unconscious child who only wanted
          to do her best to please.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I want to be good," she said meekly.
        </p>
        <p>
          "So you are," said John warmly.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Am I?" she asked softly, looking up at him with wide
          blue eyes.
        </p>
        <p>
          And&#8212;John was getting to do that sort of thing quite
          unnecessarily often&#8212;he laughed and bent toward her
          with every intention of kissing her again.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Oh, that wasn't what I meant," she assured him. Then her
          mood suddenly changed. "John, you have what one of
          Grandfather's anarchist friends called a real from-gold
          heart. But you don't have to do that unless..."
        </p>
        <p>
          "Unless what?" demanded John, quite coldly removing all
          of himself that he could from her half of the seat.
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy's eyes fixed themselves on the distant
          scenery&#8212;excellent scenery, all autumn reds and
          yellows.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I'll tell you the 'unless' tomorrow morning," she
          answered him sweetly, but none the less firmly.
        </p>
        <p>
          "You are playing with me, Joy, I think," John answered in
          his most diagnostic tone&#8212;the exact tone in which he
          would have said, "You have smallpox, Joy, I think."
        </p>
        <p>
          "Why, yes," she answered him demurely. "We were to,
          weren't we?"
        </p>
        <p>
          "You'll have to wait out here a while; I have a case
          here," he told her in a voice which held a note of
          endurance.
        </p>
        <p>
          She sat quite still, after suppressing a faint impulse to
          ask him if she should hold the motor. She leaned back and
          gave herself up to the country sights and sounds and
          scents, gently ecstatic.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Oh, Aunt Lucilla!" she was saying inwardly. "You'd be
          proud of me!"
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy was actually playing&#8212;he had said
          so&#8212;playing with a man!
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p><a name="ch07"><!--Marker--></a>
        <h2>
          CHAPTER SEVEN
        </h2>
        <h3>
          A VERY CHARMING GENTLEMAN
        </h3>
        <p>
          "You look lovely," said Phyllis heartily. She herself was
          radiant in a rose satin that made her look, as her small
          son remarked ecstatically, like a valentine. "Mustn't it
          be horrid to be a man and always wear the same black
          clothes?"
        </p>
        <p>
          "M'yes," answered Joy absent-mindedly. "If I look as nice
          as you do I don't have to worry. But&#8212;but will Gail
          Maddox be very much dressed?"
        </p>
        <p>
          "She will," replied Phyllis decisively. "If I know Gail,
          she'll look like a Christmas tree. But don't let that
          weigh on your mind, dear child. Nobody could look better
          than you do, if Viola and I did combine two of your
          frocks into one. Could they, Viola?"
        </p>
        <p>
          The colored girl, who had been doing the masses of Joy's
          bronze hair while her mistress, kneeling by the
          dressing-table, put the finishing touches to some
          frock-draperies, giggled.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Well dressed? Why, Miss Joy looks like the vampire in
          the movie show!"
        </p>
        <p>
          "Final praise!" sighed Phyllis. "You never told me I was
          as well dressed as a vampire, Viola."
        </p>
        <p>
          "You couldn't live up to vampiring, nohow, Mrs.
          Harrington, nor you shouldn't want to, not with that
          goldy hair of yours," said Viola reprovingly.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Virtue is thrust upon me, in other words," said Phyllis.
          "Evidently you have possibilities of crime, Joy!"
        </p>
        <p>
          They went down, laughing, to where Allan and John were
          waiting for them, Allan walking the floor in his usual
          quick, boyish fashion, John sitting at a table reading,
          by way of economizing time. Being a doctor, he had a way
          of snapping up odds and ends of time and doing things
          with them.
        </p>
        <p>
          He looked up from his paper as Joy's light footsteps
          pattered down the stairs, and continued to look at her.
          The green and silver of her gown glittered and flowed
          around her. Viola had done her hair high, and the wealth
          of it showed more, even, than when it was down in its
          accustomed braids. Her surprising black brows and lashes,
          with the innocence of her blue eyes, and the
          half-wistful, half-daring expression she had, made her
          seem a combination of sophistication and childishness
          such as John had never seen before.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Shall I do you credit?" she asked him softly over her
          shoulder, as he held her wrap for her.
        </p>
        <p>
          Her heart beat hard as she said it. She felt as if she
          was going into open battle, and she wanted all the
          heartening she could get.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Tell me now that you like me better than you do Gail
          Maddox!" was what she wanted to say. But she knew she
          couldn't, not without being thought a cat. "I can't get
          over finding motors scattered all over everything!" was
          what she heard herself saying inconsequently instead as
          they went out. She did not dare give him time to answer
          her first impulsive question.
        </p>
        <p>
          But he answered it just the same.
        </p>
        <p>
          "You do me great credit, my dear. I never knew you were
          quite so beautiful." He said it gravely, but none the
          less sincerely. "It's very pleasant to remember that I
          have property rights to such a charming person."
        </p>
        <p>
          Property rights! Joy's heart gave a little warm jump. If
          he could say that&#8212;if he could even seem to forget
          that she was only rented, so to speak...
        </p>
        <p>
          Before she thought she had reached up and caught his hand
          in a warm, furtive grasp for a moment. She took it away
          again directly, but it had comforted her to touch him. He
          was so strong and so <i>there</i>.... Also, Viola's words
          comforted her; if she looked like a vampire, why, maybe,
          with the aid of the wishing ring and Aunt Lucilla's
          ghost, she could live up to it. Having her hair done as
          high and her dress cut as low as anybody's also gave her
          courage. Altogether it was, if not a perfectly
          self-assured, at least a very poised-looking little
          figure that came smiling into Mrs. Hewitt's embrace from
          the motor, with her lover close behind her, like a
          bodyguard.
        </p>
        <p>
          "You little angel! You look perfect!" said her
          mother-in-law-elect rapturously. "And you match my
          lavender grandeur perfectly. That's a sweet frock,
          Phyllis. Hurry down, girls, you want to have a little
          time to rest before you have to stand up for years and
          receive."
        </p>
        <p>
          It was early still when they came down from the
          dressing-rooms, and no guests had arrived yet. So they
          settled themselves in the dining-room, informally, to
          wait and visit a little.
        </p>
        <p>
          "One has <i>no</i> chance for fun with an earnest-minded
          son," Mrs. Hewitt complained amiably. "This is the first
          doings of any sort I have ever had that John was even
          remotely connected with. A nice little daughter that
          would dance and flirt and turn the house upside
          down&#8212;that was what I was entitled to&#8212;and I
          got a brilliant young physician who specializes on the
          <i>os innominata</i>, or something equally thrilling! I
          sometimes wonder how he ever found time to annex you,
          Joy!"
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy colored. It was a random shaft, but it caught her
          breath. Then&#8212;"He didn't," she said gallantly. "I
          simply rubbed my ring and wished for him, and he came."
        </p>
        <p>
          "I'll be bound he didn't come hard," said her <i>enfant
          terrible</i> of a prospective mother-in-law placidly.
          "Johnny, keep away from those cakes! They're for much,
          much later, and for your guests, not the likes of you!"
        </p>
        <p>
          "They are excellent. We need moral support in our
          ordeal," returned her son, sauntering up, with his usual
          dignity unimpaired by a plate of fancy cakes in each
          hand. "Never mind your cruel mother-in-law, Joy. Take a
          lot&#8212;take two!"
        </p>
        <p>
          "I will, anyway," interposed Allan placidly, reaching a
          long, unexpected brown hand over his friend's shoulder
          and securing three. "Phyllis and I need as much moral
          support as anybody."
        </p>
        <p>
          "Phyllis is the only one who is minding her manners,"
          Mrs. Hewitt observed with a firmness that she patently
          didn't mean in the least. "Phyllis, my dear, go get some
          of the sandwiches. We may as well lunch thoroughly. We
          have heaps of time before the 'gesses' get here, anyway."
        </p>
        <p>
          They were all playing like a lot of children. Phyllis,
          flushed and laughing, raided the kitchen with her husband
          and came back with more kinds of sandwiches than Joy had
          known existed. They sat about on cushions on the floor,
          because the chairs had been taken out for dancing later,
          and the floor waxed. Joy laughed with the rest, and
          lunched sumptuously on the cakes the guests ought to have
          had, and thought for the thousandth time what an ideal
          mother-in-law was hers at the moment, and how many of the
          people in the world were the realest of real folks, and
          how much like Christmas every-day life was getting to
          be...
        </p>
        <p>
          "I see you are eating up everything before the really
          deserving poor arrive," said a slow, coolly amused voice
          behind Joy, who sat with her back to the entrance.
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy did not need Mrs. Hewitt's equally calm
          "Good-evening, Gail. Since when have you been deserving?"
          to know who had entered.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Came to help you receive," stated Gail further, still
          indolently, bringing herself further into the circle as
          she spoke, where Joy could see her. "I brought a stray
          cousin along&#8212;sex, male. I knew you wouldn't
          care&#8212;men are a godsend in New England towns. Here
          he is."
        </p>
        <p>
          The cousin in question was evidently motioned to, for he
          appeared in the range of Joy's vision with a charming
          certainty of welcome, and the two merged themselves with
          the circle without more ceremony. They had evidently made
          their way to the dressing-rooms before coming to hunt for
          the family.
        </p>
        <p>
          While Gail introduced her cousin a little more
          thoroughly, Joy gave her a furtive, but still more
          thorough, inspection. She seemed twenty-five or six. She
          was very slim, with lines like a boy more than a girl;
          sallow, with large, steady blue-gray eyes and heavy
          lashes, and lips that were so full that they were
          sullen-looking when her face was still. She was not
          unusually pretty&#8212;indeed, by Phyllis'
          rose-and-golden beauty she looked dingy&#8212;but she had
          something arresting about her, and the carriage and
          manner of a girl who is insolently certain that whatever
          she says or does is perfect because she does it. She had
          on a straight blue chiffon frock, cut unusually low: so
          low that it was continually slipping off one thin
          shoulder. Allan confided to Joy afterward that Gail's
          shoulder-straps worried him to madness.
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy watched Miss Maddox with fascinated eyes. "I'm so
          <i>young</i>!" she thought forlornly, "and all the rest
          of them are so dreadfully grown-up!"
        </p>
        <p>
          She felt as if Gail Maddox, with her brilliant, careless
          sentences, and her half-insolent confidence, owned
          everybody there much more than <i>she</i> did: and she
          felt little and underdressed and outclassed to a point
          where even Gail might pity her, and probably did.... And
          if there is a more abjectly awful feeling than that the
          Other Girl pities you, nobody has discovered it yet....
          Gail might even know how much of a pretender she was. If
          John&#8212;but no. John wasn't like that. He
          was&#8212;"fantastically honorable," she had heard
          Phyllis call it. John hadn't told&#8212;he wouldn't tell
          if his own happiness depended on it.... And Joy let her
          thoughts stray off into a maze of wondering as to whether
          she would rather have her self-respect saved by not
          having Gail know, or whether, if it would break John's
          heart to be separated forever from Gail, she oughtn't to
          tell him to tell.
        </p>
        <p>
          Gail, lounging in a low chair she had dragged across the
          waxed floor in the face of all outcries, with one
          electric-blue-shod foot stretched out before her, looked
          exactly the person you'd care least to have know anything
          they could scorn you about. She could scorn so well and
          so convincingly, Joy felt, listening to her. There
          wouldn't be a thing left of you when she got through.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I feel as alone as Robinson Crusoe," thought Joy
          forlornly.
        </p>
        <p>
          She rose restlessly and picked up the tray which had
          borne their illegal sandwiches, with the idea of carrying
          it and herself out of sight. She wanted a minute to brace
          herself in.
        </p>
        <p>
          As she did it, Allan rose, too, unexpectedly, as he did
          most things. "Here, I'll take some of those," he offered,
          and helped her carry the debris out.
        </p>
        <p>
          They set down their burdens on a pantry table, whence
          three scandalized maids whisked them somewhere else
          again, gazing the while reproachfully at the invaders.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I haven't any use for that girl," stated Allan plainly,
          as they went back. "Don't let her fuss you, Joy."
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy looked gratefully up at him. The whole world, then,
          didn't prefer Gail Maddox to her!
        </p>
        <p>
          "She makes me feel exactly like a small dog that has
          stolen a bone and got caught," Joy acknowledged directly,
          with a little shamefaced laugh.
        </p>
        <p>
          "She'll do her best in that line," responded Allan, who
          seemed to have no great affection for the lady. "Don't
          let her bother you. He's your bone&#8212;hang on to him.
          In short, sic 'em!"
        </p>
        <p>
          They both laughed, and Joy came back with her bronze head
          high and an access of fresh courage. She sat down this
          time between John and the cousin, whose name she had not
          heard. But she began talking hard to him. Occasionally
          she tossed John, fenced in beside her, a cheerful word.
          He seemed perfectly satisfied at first, but the cousin
          did not. He wanted Joy all to himself, it appeared, and a
          fianc&eacute; more or less seemed to have no bearing on
          the case, as far as he was concerned.
        </p>
        <p>
          Presently John woke up to this fact and began the effort
          to repossess himself of his lawful property. Joy cast a
          mischievous glance at Allan, sitting on the arm of his
          wife's chair (chairs had become the order of the day),
          and Allan grinned happily, by some means telegraphing the
          situation to Phyllis. Every one was happy except John,
          and perhaps Gail, who presently eyed the three and used
          her usual weapon of lazy frankness.
        </p>
        <p>
          "It makes me furious to see both of you making violent
          love to Joy Havenith," she said indolently. "Clarence, go
          start the victrola, my good man. This must be put a stop
          to."
        </p>
        <p>
          Clarence lifted himself from the floor by Joy, but he
          calmly took her hand along with him, and raised her, too.
        </p>
        <p>
          "She's going to christen the floor with me," he informed
          his cousin. "Come on, Miss Joy!"
        </p>
        <p>
          The isolation that ordinarily doth hedge an engaged girl,
          where men are concerned, seemed to trouble Clarence not
          at all. He was, by the way, in spite of the fact that he
          would some day be too stout, one of the best-looking men
          who ever lived. He had a good deal of his cousin's lazy
          assurance&#8212;in him it sometimes verged on impudence,
          but never beyond the getting-away-with point&#8212;and a
          heavenly smile. His other name was, unbelievably,
          Rutherford, which almost took the curse off the Clarence,
          as he said, but not quite. And if he had gone into the
          movies he would have made millions, beyond a doubt.
        </p>
        <p>
          He drew Joy across the floor with him, in her
          green-and-silver draperies, and began to wind the
          victrola, which had been tucked into a nook where Mrs.
          Hewitt had vainly hoped it would be quite hidden. There
          was to be an orchestra afterwards for the authorized
          dancing.
        </p>
        <p>
          Clarence put on "Poor Butterfly," and encircling Joy
          proceeded to dance away with her.
        </p>
        <p>
          "But I don't know how to dance," she gasped as she felt
          herself being drawn smoothly across the floor.
        </p>
        <p>
          "That doesn't matter, Sorcerette, dear," said Clarence
          blandly. "Just let go&#8212;be clay in the hands of the
          potter. I'll do the dancing for two. Hear me?"
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy did as she was told, and&#8212;marvel of
          marvels!&#8212;found herself following him easily. She
          was really dancing!
        </p>
        <p>
          "But why did you call me that?" she demanded, like a
          child, as she got her breath. To her apprehensive mind
          the name sounded as if Gail had not only learned her dark
          secret but had passed it on to her dear Cousin Clarence.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Because you look it," said he promptly, in a voice that
          softened from word to word. "...Harrington is a good
          dancer, isn't he? Phyllis looks all right, but I fancy
          she guides hard. Those tall women often do.... Why,
          anybody with brows and lashes like yours, and hair that
          color, combined with that angelic
          please-guide-me-through-a-hard-world expression simply
          shrieks aloud for a name like that. A sorcerette is a
          cross between a seraph and a little witch. There's no
          telling what she might do to you!"
        </p>
        <p>
          "Oh!" cooed Joy.
        </p>
        <p>
          It sounded like a very happy "Oh," and Clarence,
          experienced love-pirate though he was, hadn't a way in
          the world of knowing that Joy's pleasure came of being
          still undiscovered, not of his winning ways.
        </p>
        <p>
          She danced on with him to the very last note of the
          record, enraptured to find that she really could dance,
          and came back to the end of the room where Mrs. Hewitt
          still sat; her eyes starry with delight.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Oh, I can dance when I just go where the man takes me!"
          she cried. "I never knew I could!"
        </p>
        <p>
          "You dance very well," said John's quiet voice from
          behind his mother's chair. "Will you dance with me now?"
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy, regarding him, saw that he was vexed. Most people
          would not have noticed it, but very few of his moods
          escaped Joy. He was a little graver than usual, and his
          voice was quieter.
        </p>
        <p>
          "If I can," she answered. "I thought you were dancing
          this with Miss Maddox."
        </p>
        <p>
          "I didn't think it would show proper courtesy to my
          fianc&eacute;e to dance first with some one else," John
          answered.
        </p>
        <p>
          Clarence had set the music going again, and was swinging
          round the room with Gail. As it began, John, with no more
          words, drew Joy out on the floor with him.
        </p>
        <p>
          She looked up in surprise at his words.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Why&#8212;why, I didn't know I was that much of a
          fianc&eacute;e to you. I thought probably you'd rather be
          with Gail. And&#8212;and I didn't know I was going to
          dance anyway. I didn't know I could!"
        </p>
        <p>
          He looked down at her again, apparently to see whether
          she was in earnest, holding her off for a moment as they
          danced.
        </p>
        <p>
          She hoped he would deny that he preferred being with
          Gail, but he did not.
        </p>
        <p>
          "We are going through our month of relationship
          <i>right</i>," he told her definitely, smiling, but
          looking down at her with the steady, steel-colored light
          in his gray eyes that she knew meant "no appeal." "Gail
          does not enter into it at all. But I admit that
          Rutherford's quickness put me in the wrong."
        </p>
        <p>
          "If only," thought Joy, acutely conscious of his firm
          hold, "instead of laying down the law that way, he would
          let go and admit that he was angry!" For he certainly
          was, and it wasn't at all her fault, unless going where
          Clarence took her was a crime. John <i>hadn't</i> thought
          of dancing first. Was he the kind of person who always
          thought he was right even when he knew he wasn't? If so,
          maybe a month <i>was</i> long enough.... But the thought
          of the end of the month hurt, no matter how unreasonable
          she tried to think John, and she threw down her
          arms&#8212;the only way, if she had known, to make John
          throw down his.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Are you angry at me?" she half whispered.
          "I&#8212;please don't be angry. Nobody ever was, and I
          don't want to be silly, but I don't believe I could stand
          it."
        </p>
        <p>
          He swept her rhythmically on, but she could feel his arm
          relax and hold her more warmly, and his wonderful gray
          eyes softened again as they looked into hers.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Poor little thing! I keep forgetting that you're just a
          child. Sometimes you aren't, you know."
        </p>
        <p>
          "No, sometimes I'm not," Joy echoed. Then she laughed up
          at him impishly. "You say this thing is going to be done
          right?" she mocked. "Very well, then, when Mr. Rutherford
          is nice to me you ought to be nicer. When he sits down
          close to me and tells me I'm a sorcerette&#8212;"
        </p>
        <p>
          "A what?" demanded John swiftly. "See here, Joy, I'm
          practically in charge of you, and you're very young, you
          know, and can't be expected to know much about men.
          Rutherford is attractive and all that, but he's a man I
          wouldn't trust the other side of a biscuit. Any man can
          tell you that. Allan&#8212;"
        </p>
        <p>
          "He talks just like a poet," said Joy innocently. How
          could John know that this was an insult, not a
          compliment, in Joy's mind? She had seen any amount of
          Clarences&#8212;ignoring her, to be sure, but still
          saying Clarence things to others in her hearing&#8212;all
          her days.
        </p>
        <p>
          "That may be," said John. "I'm no judge of poets, and I
          suppose you are.... See here, Joy, there's an
          inhabitant&#8212;two of 'em&#8212;coming in the doorway.
          Mother'll be wanting you to stand in a silly line and
          pass people along to her, or away from her, or something.
          Come here with me and we'll finish this. You're getting a
          wrong impression of what I mean."
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy found herself being steered masterfully into a little
          semi-dark room that opened off the long parlor. John
          planted her in a low chair in a corner and pulled up a
          stool for himself just opposite.
        </p>
        <p>
          "They won't find us for at least ten minutes, unless we
          wigwag. Now&#8212;what's a sorcerette?"
        </p>
        <p>
          His tone, in spite of his carelessness, betrayed a
          certain anxiety to learn. Joy answered him with fullness
          and simplicity.
        </p>
        <p>
          "A sorcerette is somebody with coloring like mine, and a
          cross between a seraph and a little witch," she replied
          innocently. "That's what Clarence said. But I
          <i>think</i> he made up the name himself," she added
          conscientiously, as if that would be some help.
        </p>
        <p>
          John grinned a little in spite of himself.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I don't like the idea particularly of his making the
          name up himself," he remarked; "but there is something in
          what Rutherford said!"
        </p>
        <p>
          "I'm very glad you think so," said Joy with a transparent
          meekness. "And now that you've found out, isn't it time
          you went back to your duties?"
        </p>
        <p>
          He looked at her doubtfully, where she sat in the
          half-light with her head held high and her hands crossed
          on her green-and-silver lap. He could not quite make out
          her expression.
        </p>
        <p>
          But he had not much more chance for cross-questioning,
          because guests were beginning to come thickly, and his
          mother was sending out agonized scouting parties for the
          feature of the evening.
        </p>
        <p>
          Phyllis, knowing the rooms of old, discovered her. She
          swooped down on the pair, where they were sitting in the
          little dim room.
        </p>
        <p>
          "You wretched people, this is no time for that sort of
          thing!" she exclaimed, shoving them before her. "Please
          try to remember that you will, in all likelihood, spend a
          lifetime together. Joy, three severe New England
          spinsters have already taken Gail Maddox for you. Hurry!"
        </p>
        <p>
          The suggestion was quite enough, as Phyllis may have
          known it would be. Joy whisked into her place, which was
          opposite the double doors, between Mrs. Hewitt and
          Phyllis, and taking her burden of white chrysanthemums on
          one arm, proceeded to be as charming to her future
          patients-in-law as she knew how.
        </p>
        <p>
          Mrs. Hewitt and Phyllis cast glances of astonished
          admiration at each other over her head. They neither of
          them had thought of Joy as anything but a sweet child, or
          an affectionate child&#8212;a darling, but shy and unused
          to the world. But she was managing her share of the
          evening's pageant as if she had run a salon for twenty
          years. It did not occur to them that the explanation was
          that she practically had been brought up in one. She had
          been a part of the bi-weekly receptions given to the
          small and great of the earth by Havenith the poet ever
          since she was old enough to come into the parlors and
          could be trusted not to cry or snatch cake.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Good gracious, Joy, <i>where</i> did you learn to drive
          people four-in-hand this way?" breathed Phyllis
          admiringly, in a lull. "I <i>know</i>, if I'd had to talk
          to two Miss Peabodys and three Miss Brearleys and a stray
          Jones <i>all</i> at once, at least five of them would
          have hated me forever after. And you kept them going like
          a juggler's balls!"
        </p>
        <p>
          "They're not half as hard as the people at Grandfather's
          afternoons," answered Joy. "He had almost every kind of
          person&#8212;everybody wanted to see him, you know, and
          he felt it his duty to gratify as many as he could, he
          said. Oh, Phyllis, <i>ten</i> Brearleys and Peabodys are
          nothing to trying to make three Celtic poets and a
          vers-librist talk pleasantly to each other!"
        </p>
        <p>
          "You're a darling," said Phyllis irrelevantly.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I see you've been working virtuously hard," put in Gail
          pleasantly, sauntering up. "Now, <i>I</i> gave up being
          noble-hearted to the uninteresting some time ago. There's
          very little in it. I collected a suitor or so early in
          the evening, and we've been telling each other what we
          really thought of all the worst guests, in the little
          room off. You ought to hear John's description of&#8212;"
        </p>
        <p>
          "She shan't&#8212;it's not for your young ears," said
          Clarence possessively from where he stood, a little
          behind Gail. Gail had three men with her&#8212;Clarence,
          John, and a slim youth who looked younger than he proved
          to be, and who answered to the name of Tiddy.
        </p>
        <p>
          All Joy's feelings of triumph and innocent satisfaction
          in having won the liking of Mrs. Hewitt's guests faded.
          She felt as Gail had made her feel before&#8212;foolishly
          good and ridiculously young and altogether unsuccessful
          in life. For a moment the mood held her in a very crushed
          state of mind: then she caught Clarence's eyes fixed upon
          her with a look of amused admiration. It spurred her.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I've been doing my duty by my future lord and master,"
          she said lightly. "But now you put it that way, he
          doesn't sound like a worthy cause a bit."
        </p>
        <p>
          The men laughed, though Joy's words hadn't sounded
          particularly witty to herself. "I'm going to abjure duty
          now," she went on hurriedly. "The orchestra's playing
          that thing people can dance me to&#8212;&#8212;"
        </p>
        <p>
          She held her hand and arm gracefully high, in the old
          minuet pose, and laughed up at Clarence. <i>He</i> wasn't
          supposed to be her lover, and yet he saw through Gail
          when John didn't&#8212;&#8212;
        </p>
        <p>
          "By Jove, I can do the minuet!" he said eagerly. "Can
          you, Miss Joy?"
        </p>
        <p>
          She smiled and nodded.
        </p>
        <p>
          <br>
          &nbsp;&nbsp; <i>"Grandma told me all about it,<br>
          &nbsp;&nbsp; Taught me so I could not doubt it,"</i>
        </p>
        <p>
          she sang softly.
        </p>
        <p>
          "We'll do it&#8212;we'll do it for the happy villagers!"
          proclaimed Clarence.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Here, Tiddy, go cut a girl out of the herd, and find
          Harrington, too. We're the bell-cows. All you others have
          to do is to obediently follow us&#8212;the men follow me
          and the women tag around after Miss Joy&#8212;which last
          seems wrong, but can't be helped."
        </p>
        <p>
          "Not at all," said John amiably. "Far be it from me to
          seem to steal your thunder, Rutherford, but I, too, was
          in the village pageant last year, and I minuet
          excellently. All my grateful patients said so. You know,
          if you led off, they might take you for the man who's
          going to marry Miss Havenith."
        </p>
        <p>
          Clarence couldn't very well do or say anything to his
          host, but he looked far from pleased as John took Joy's
          hand and quietly led her into line. Tiddy came up just
          then with a pretty, dark little girl whom he had selected
          with great judgment from the guests as being just of a
          height between Joy and Gail. He had also enlisted the
          orchestra, for it began to play "La Cinquantaine" as they
          all took their places facing each other. They were all
          laughing, even Clarence. The guests, catching the spirit
          of the thing, began to laugh and applaud, and&#8212;it
          seemed like magic that it could be done so
          swiftly&#8212;formed two more sets in the rest of the
          room, while the elders, against the wall, watched
          approvingly.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I thought nobody but me danced minuets any more," Joy
          whispered to John as, her eyes alight with happiness, she
          crossed him in the changes of the lovely old dance.
        </p>
        <p>
          "There happened to be a historical pageant here last
          summer," he explained to her, "and there were eight
          minuet sets in the Revolutionary episode, so we had to
          learn. Mother hounded me into it. I'm glad now she did."
        </p>
        <p>
          "Why?" inquired Joy innocently the next time she met him.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I like to maintain my rights," he answered with a little
          gleam of fun in his eyes.
        </p>
        <p>
          But Joy felt fairly certain that the gleam of fun had
          behind it a gleam of decision. Certainly John's motto
          was, "What's mine's mine!"&#8212;even when it was rented.
        </p>
        <p>
          They finished to applause, and as the orchestra ended its
          minuet it slid on into a modern dance, and so did each of
          the couples, dancing on out on the floor.
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy sank down at the end of the waltz on a seat by the
          wall, with John beside her.
        </p>
        <p>
          He bent over her.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Having a good time, kiddie?" he asked her gently. She
          nodded, her eyes like stars.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Oh, I'm <i>people</i>, at last!" she said with a soft
          exultance. "I've always looked on and looked on, like a
          doll or a mechanical figure&#8212;and I'm real&#8212;I'm
          in the midst of things! And it's all you and the wishing
          ring! ... John, did you see? Your people&#8212;they
          really liked me!"
        </p>
        <p>
          "Of course they did, you little goosie," he told her,
          smiling down at her. "You have more personal charm than
          almost any girl I ever knew. I don't know any one who
          doesn't like you."
        </p>
        <p>
          "Gail doesn't," Joy ventured.
        </p>
        <p>
          John shook his head.
        </p>
        <p>
          "You don't understand Gail," he said. "She's a mighty
          brilliant girl. She doesn't often like other girls, I
          admit that&#8212;but she took to you. I could see it."
        </p>
        <p>
          "Could you?" flashed Joy. "Men see so much! ... She's
          beckoning to you."
        </p>
        <p>
          She flung her head back angrily. Nobody likes to be told
          she doesn't understand another girl&#8212;and the fact
          that the girl is mighty brilliant doesn't make you feel
          better about it.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I'll be back in just a moment," said John obliviously,
          and went with what seemed to Joy unnecessary docility.
        </p>
        <p>
          She stood there alone, her hands clasped hard, her head
          up&#8212;to all appearance a vivid, triumphant little
          figure. Her heart was beating like mad and her cheeks
          burnt. She had just found out something about herself,
          something that a wiser, older woman would have known a
          long time ago: as long ago as when the Wishing Ring Man
          stood, the light glinting on his fair hair and sturdy
          shoulders, in the opening of Grandfather's hall door.
        </p>
        <p>
          She was in love with John&#8212;furiously, wildly,
          heart-breakingly in love with him. And she was going to
          have to live close by him for a month, knowing that, and
          keeping him from knowing it&#8212;and then go away from
          him and never see him any more.
        </p>
        <p>
          "This is our dance, Sorcerette," said Clarence's voice in
          her ear.
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p><a name="ch08"><!--Marker--></a>
        <h2>
          CHAPTER EIGHT
        </h2>
        <h3>
          A FOUNTAIN IN FAIRYLAND
        </h3>
        <p>
          Joy had supposed, when she finally went to sleep at three
          in the morning, that she would waken with all the
          excitement gone and feeling very unhappy. She had always
          heard that it made you unhappy to be in love.
        </p>
        <p>
          Instead, she opened her eyes with the excitement of it
          all still pulsing through her. The fact that John was in
          the world and she could care for him seemed almost enough
          to account for the sense of happiness that possessed her
          as she pattered over to the window and looked out. And
          what little more was needed to account for her
          exhilaration could be found in the wonderful September
          morning outside. There probably <i>were</i> troubles
          somewhere or other, such as darkened city parlors, minor
          poets, and sophisticated seekers after John, but somehow
          she and they didn't connect. The air was so tingling and
          sunny, and the garden was so beautiful, and being young
          and free and in the country was so heavenly that she
          dressed and ran down, and sang along the garden paths as
          she picked herself a big bunch of golden chrysanthemums
          and purple and pink asters.
        </p>
        <p>
          Nobody else, apparently, was stirring yet. Joy was
          beginning to feel hungry, so she strayed into the
          dining-room, to see whether by any chance anybody else
          was down.
        </p>
        <p>
          Phyllis was just coming into the dining-room, with her
          son frolicking about her.
        </p>
        <p>
          "How do you feel after your triumph last night?" she
          asked. "Dead; or do you want another party this morning?
          I was proud of you, Joy. Everybody told me how pretty you
          were, and how charming, and how intelligent it was of me
          to be a friend of yours."
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy flushed with genuine pleasure.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Oh, was I&#8212;did they?" she asked. "Phyllis, it was
          <i>lovely!</i> ... And think of being able to dance like
          that without knowing how! That was just a plain miracle,
          if you like!"
        </p>
        <p>
          "Good-morning, Joy," said Allan, coming in at this point.
        </p>
        <p>
          He sat down with them and attacked his grapefruit.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I see I'm two laps behind on breakfast. Philip, you
          young rascal, where's my cherry?"
        </p>
        <p>
          Philip giggled uncontrollably.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Why, Father, you ate it yourself! <i>You</i> ate it
          while you said good-morning to Joy!"
        </p>
        <p>
          "You seem to have made one fast friend, Joy," pursued
          Allan, dismissing the subject of the cherry for later
          consideration. "Rutherford confided to me last night that
          he thought he had been working too hard; he isn't
          returning to his native heath for a month more. His
          aunt's been pressing him to stay on, and he thinks he
          will. He's coming over to see me this morning. He's
          devoted to me," stated Allan sweetly. "There's nothing he
          needs more than my friendship. He explained it to me."
        </p>
        <p>
          Phyllis and he both laughed.
        </p>
        <p>
          "You always did have winning ways, Allan," said his wife
          mischievously. "When is John expected to drop in? He,
          too, loves you&#8212;don't forget that!"
        </p>
        <p>
          Allan grinned.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Poor old Johnny has to look after his patients. He can't
          very well snatch a vacation in his own home town. It's a
          hard world for gentlemen, Joy!"
        </p>
        <p>
          Phyllis looked from one to the other of them with an
          answering light of mischief in her eyes.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I suppose John could take anybody he liked to hold the
          car, couldn't he?" she said demurely. "In fact&#8212;he
          has!"
        </p>
        <p>
          "If you mean me," answered Joy, "he was very severe with
          me yesterday. John is bringing me up in the way I should
          go!" The feeling of vivid excitement was still carrying
          her along, and she laughed as she answered them.
        </p>
        <p>
          Allan looked at her critically.
        </p>
        <p>
          "H'm!" he said thoughtfully. "I seem to have a feeling
          that he won't bring you such an amazing distance, at
          that&#8212;short time as I have known you. Did you say
          popovers this morning, Phyllis?"
        </p>
        <p>
          "Popovers," nodded Phyllis, "and some of Lily-Anna's
          fresh marmalade."
        </p>
        <p>
          "An' little dogs!" broke in Philip enthusiastically. "Oh,
          Father, don't you just <i>love</i> little dogs?"
        </p>
        <p>
          His mother tried to look troubled.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Allan, don't you think you could teach Phil, by precept
          or example, that they really are sausages?" she asked.
          "The other day at Mrs. Varney's we had them for luncheon,
          and he said, 'I'd like another pup, please!' And she was
          shocked to the heart's core."
        </p>
        <p>
          "It's such a nice convenient name," pleaded Allan. "Joy,
          I have to waste most of the morning talking over the
          long-distance 'phone to my lawyer. I shall spend an hour
          discussing leases, and two more bullying him and his wife
          into coming out to visit us. You will readily see that I
          can't entertain my new-found soulmate at the same time. I
          don't suppose you could offer any suggestions about his
          amusement?"
        </p>
        <p>
          "Solitaire," suggested Joy demurely. "Or you might give
          him a book to read."
        </p>
        <p>
          Allan threw back his head and laughed.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Excellent ideas, both!" he said, "and truly original. He
          shall have his choice!"
        </p>
        <p>
          "You have the kindest hearts in the world," said Phyllis,
          summoning the waitress. "Allan, before you finish that
          million-dollar conversation to Mr. De Guenther, please
          call me. I want to speak to him a minute, too."
        </p>
        <p>
          "I'll call you," he promised.
        </p>
        <p>
          They drifted off, Phyllis to attend to her housekeeping,
          Allan to his long-distance leases, and Philip to find
          Angela, whom he never forgot for long. She had breakfast
          with her nurse, and Philip felt it was time he looked her
          up. He adored his little sister, and spent the larger
          part of his days in teaching her everything he had been
          taught, which was sometimes hard on Angela, who obeyed
          him implicitly.
        </p>
        <p>
          As for Joy, she strayed out into the garden again. The
          feeling of intense, happy aliveness in a wonderful world
          was still on her, and she wanted to be alone to think
          things out&#8212;to think out especially the thing she
          had discovered last night&#8212;and what to do about it.
        </p>
        <p>
          It was as warm as June by this time, for the sun was
          getting higher, and she went slowly down the paths with
          the sun shining on her hair and making it look like fire,
          breaking, as she went, a few more flowers to pin in her
          dress. She had put on one of her old picture-frocks, a
          straight dull-cream wool thing that she wore in the
          mornings at home, girdled in with a silver cord about the
          hips. She fitted the garden exceedingly well, though
          nothing was further from her thoughts.
        </p>
        <p>
          At the far end, among a tangle of roses and beneath a
          group of shade-trees, the Harringtons had set a little
          fountain, a flat, low-set marble basin with a single jet
          of water springing high, and falling almost straight down
          again. Its purpose was to cool the air on very hot days,
          but it always flowed till frost, because it was so pretty
          Phyllis never could bear to have it shut off. Joy loved
          the half-hidden, lovely place, though she had only had
          one glimpse of it before, and she sat down by it and
          began to try to think things out. She had a much harder
          thinking to do than she'd had for a long time.
        </p>
        <p>
          "A 'hard world for gentlemen'!" meditated Joy, and
          laughed as she trailed one hand in the water. "It's a
          much harder one for ladies, if Allan but knew it!"
        </p>
        <p>
          She bent over, half-absently, to watch the water in the
          basin. It fascinated her, the flow of it, and it helped
          her to reason things out. There were several things that
          needed reasoning.
        </p>
        <p>
          To begin with&#8212;there was no use saying it wasn't so,
          for it was&#8212;she was in love with John.... Her heart
          beat hard as she looked down into the water and said the
          words in her mind. It would have been lovely to do
          nothing but sit there and think of him. There were so
          many different wonderful things he had for her to think
          about; his steady eyes that changed from warm-gray to
          steel-gray, and back, and could look as if they loved you
          or hated you or admired you or fathered you, while the
          rest of his face told nothing at all; the little gold
          glint in his fair hair and the way it curled when it was
          damp weather; his square, back-flung shoulders; the
          strong way he had of moving you about, as if you were a
          doll&#8212;the way his voice sounded when she said
          certain words&#8212;
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy pulled her thoughts from all that by force.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Clarence Rutherford calls me a sorcerette," she thought,
          "and I suppose I must be. This must be being one. But,
          oh, I <i>have</i> to think how I can get John to love me
          back!"
        </p>
        <p>
          It looked a little hopeless, to think of, at first. He
          was so old and wise and strong, compared to her, just a
          nineteen-year-old girl who had never had even one lover
          to practise on! Something Gail had said the night before
          came back to her&#8212;one of the girl's half-scornful,
          half-amused phrases.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Barring a male flirt or so like Clarence over there,"
          she had vouchsafed, "men <i>are</i> such simple-minded
          children of nature! All you have to do is to treat them
          like hounds and tell them what to do, and they'll do it."
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy could scarcely imagine treating John like a hound.
          She was too afraid of him, except once in a while when
          she had a burst of daring. But, at any rate, if she went
          on the principle that John was simple-minded and could
          always be depended on to think she felt the way she
          acted, things would be lots easier.
        </p>
        <p>
          "If only I can keep the courage!" she prayed.
        </p>
        <p>
          But as to details. She would have to let John see enough
          of her to want her about. But&#8212;not so much that he
          got tired of it.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I wonder how much of me would tire him?" she said.
          Anyway&#8212;Joy dimpled as she thought of it&#8212;he
          seemed to want to be the only one. He didn't seem to want
          Clarence around. They all kept telling her Clarence was a
          flirt&#8212;as if she wanted him to be anything else!
          It's a comfort sometimes to know that a man can be
          depended on not to have intentions.... Very well, she
          would try to make John jealous of Clarence. Not enough to
          hurt him&#8212;it would be dreadful to hurt
          him!&#8212;but enough to make herself valuable.
        </p>
        <p>
          "It's going to be very hard," she decided, "because all I
          want is to do just as he says and make everything as
          happy for him as I can. Oh, dear, why are men like that!"
        </p>
        <p>
          But she was fairly certain that they were. They were like
          that in the books, and Gail had said so. Gail apparently
          knew.
        </p>
        <p>
          "It'll be hard," she thought sadly. Then her face
          brightened. "But it'll be fun! and if it works I'll be
          able to be as nice to John as I want to all the rest of
          my life, and please him to my heart's content. Why, it'll
          be my duty!"
        </p>
        <p>
          She smiled and fell into another dream about John,
          leaning over the fountain, with her copper braids falling
          across her bosom.
        </p>
        <p>
          She had forgotten all the outside things, until presently
          she felt some one standing near her.
        </p>
        <p>
          <br>
          &nbsp;&nbsp; "<i>Lean down to the water, Melisande,
          Melisande!</i>"
        </p>
        <p>
          the some one sang, in a soft, half-mocking voice.
        </p>
        <p>
          She turned and looked up.
        </p>
        <p>
          "How do you do, Mr. Rutherford?" she said sedately.
        </p>
        <p>
          She had been addressed as "Melisande" too many times, at
          home with the poets, to be particularly excited, but even
          a man of Clarence's well-known capabilities couldn't be
          expected to know this. He disposed himself gracefully
          along the edge of the fountain. He had a feline and
          leisurely grace, in spite of the fact that he wasn't
          specially thin, had Clarence, as he very well knew.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I hope I won't fall into the water," he observed
          disarmingly. "I may if you speak to me too severely. See
          here, Melisande, why did you go and be all engaged to the
          worthy Dr. Hewitt? You had four or five good years of fun
          ahead of you if you hadn't."
        </p>
        <p>
          "I mustn't listen to you, if you talk that way," Joy told
          him quietly.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Oh, you'd better," said Clarence with placidity. "I'm
          very interesting."
        </p>
        <p>
          "You're very vain," Joy told him, laughing at him in
          spite of herself.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I am, indeed&#8212;it's one of my charms," explained he.
          "Now that's out of the way, we'll go on talking."
        </p>
        <p>
          "Well, go on talking!" Joy answered him childishly,
          putting her hands over her ears. "I can go on not
          listening!"
        </p>
        <p>
          Clarence accordingly did, while Joy kept her hands over
          her ears till her arms were tired and Clarence apparently
          had no more to say. Then she dropped them.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I was reciting the Westminster catechism," Clarence
          observed blandly. "I never waste my gems of conversation
          on deaf ears. Come, Joy of my life, unbend a little. I
          don't mean a bit of harm in the world. All I want is a
          kind word or two and the pleasure of your society."
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy looked at him thoughtfully for a moment, and then
          laughed.
        </p>
        <p>
          "If you were a poet, here is where you would tell me that
          the fetters of wearying and sordid marriage were not for
          you&#8212;that they wore on your genius," she said
          unexpectedly.
        </p>
        <p>
          Clarence gasped. It must have been very much like having
          the kitten suddenly turn and offer him rational
          conversation.
        </p>
        <p>
          "<i>Et tu</i>, Laetitia!" he said in a neat and scholarly
          manner. "Joy, you have cruelly deceived me&#8212;I
          thought you were a simple child of nature."
        </p>
        <p>
          "I don't know a bit what I am," she answered truthfully,
          "but the poets at Grandfather's did talk that
          way&#8212;not to me, but to other people&#8212;and you
          sounded like them. You aren't really a poet, are you?"
        </p>
        <p>
          "Well, I've never been overt about it," he evaded. He did
          not know what to make of Joy, any more than ever.
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy, trailing the end of a braid absently in the water,
          thought a minute longer, then looked up at him.
        </p>
        <p>
          "It seems to me," she said suddenly, "that you just mock
          and mock at things all the time. I'm not clever, and I
          can't answer you cleverly. You might as well make up your
          mind to it, and then the way I look won't be a
          disappointment to you. I know I look like a medieval
          princess. It's because I was brought up to. But I'm not
          the least bit medieval inside; honestly I'm not. I love
          to cook and I love children, and I'm always hungry for my
          meals. I don't want to seem discouraging, but I shall
          really be a dreadful disappointment to you if you&#8212;"
        </p>
        <p>
          "As long as you have copper-gold hair and sky-blue eyes,
          <i>nothing</i> you can do will disappoint me," said
          Clarence caressingly. "Be a suffragette, if you
          will&#8212;be a war-widow! It's all the same. I can be
          just as happy with you&#8212;and I intend to be!"
        </p>
        <p>
          The mockery dropped from his voice for a moment as he
          said the last words. Joy looked at him, a little
          frightened for the moment. She smiled, then.... She was
          only nineteen, but she was thoroughly human, and the
          spirit of Aunt Lucilla lighted her eyes. She dropped her
          black lashes against her pink cheeks and spoke
          irresponsibly.
        </p>
        <p>
          "But suppose&#8212;suppose I should fall in love with
          you?" she asked in a most little-girl voice. "Don't you
          see how dreadfully unhappy <i>I</i> would be?"
        </p>
        <p>
          "Oh, you won't," Clarence assured her in a tone whose
          casualness did not quite hide his welcome of the
          prospect. "We'll just be interested in each other enough
          to make it interesting. Why, Joy of My Life, I wouldn't
          take anything from good old Hewitt for anything in the
          world."
        </p>
        <p>
          There was a certain amount of conceit in Clarence's voice
          and manner, patent even to so inexperienced a person as
          Joy. He seemed to think that all he had to do was take!
          Joy looked at him curiously for a moment, and then she
          sighed. Sometimes she almost wished somebody <i>would</i>
          take her mind off caring so much for John.
        </p>
        <p>
          "But this isn't real," she suddenly thought, "the
          sunshine and the gaiety and these kind, handsome
          Harrington people being good to me, and this Clarence
          person posing about and trying to toy with my young
          affections&#8212;why, it's like a fairy tale or a play!
          ... I just rubbed the wishing ring, and it happened!"
        </p>
        <p>
          She forgot Clarence again and began to sing softly under
          her breath, watching the ruffled water.
        </p>
        <p>
          "What are you thinking, Melisande?" asked Clarence
          softly.
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy lifted her wide innocent eyes and gave him a discreet
          version.
        </p>
        <p>
          "That, after all, this is a glade in Fairyland, and I am
          the princess, and you&#8212;the dragon," she ended under
          her breath.
        </p>
        <p>
          But Clarence, naturally enough, wasn't given to casting
          himself as a dragon. He was perfectly certain he was a
          prince, and said so with charming frankness.
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy continued to sing to herself.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I don't see why I shouldn't kiss your hand, if I'm a
          prince," he observed next. "In fact, as nice a little
          hand as you have really calls for such."
        </p>
        <p>
          He reached for it&#8212;the nearest, with the wishing
          ring on it.
        </p>
        <p>
          She snatched it indignantly away and clasped her hand
          indignantly over the ring. That would be profanation!
        </p>
        <p>
          "I wish somebody would come!" she thought. "I'll have to
          leave not only Clarence, but my nice fountain, in a
          minute." The next thing she thought was, "What a
          well-trained wishing ring!" for Viola appeared between
          the tall rose trees at the entrance to the little
          pleasance.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Miss Joy, have you seen Philip anywhere?" she asked.
          "It's his dinner-time, and I've hunted the house
          upsidedown for him."
        </p>
        <p>
          "Nowhere at all," said Joy truthfully, "Oh, is it as late
          as all that? I'd better go, Mr. Rutherford."
        </p>
        <p>
          She followed Viola swiftly out, waving her hand
          provokingly to Clarence.
        </p>
        <p>
          "There's a way out on the other side of the garden," she
          called back casually.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I've found a note from Philip, Viola," Phyllis called as
          they neared the house. "He's lunching out, it seems."
        </p>
        <p>
          She handed Viola the note.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I hav gon out too Lunchun," it stated briefly. "Yours
          Sincerely, Philip Harrington."
        </p>
        <p>
          "He'll come back," his mother went on, with a perceptible
          relief in her voice. "He has a corps of old and
          middle-aged ladies about the village who adore him. He's
          probably at Miss Addison's&#8212;she's his Sunday-school
          teacher. He really should have come and asked, I suppose.
          Well, come in, Joy, and let us eat. Allan won't be
          back&#8212;he's gone off to some village-improvement
          thing that seems to think it would die without him."
        </p>
        <p>
          They ate in solitary state, except for Angela, and after
          that nothing happened, except that they separated with
          one accord to take long, generous naps.
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy was awakened from hers by Phyllis' voice, raised in
          surprise.
        </p>
        <p>
          "But, Miss <i>Addison!</i>" she was saying, on the porch
          below Joy's window, in a tone that was part amusement,
          part horror.
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy slipped on her frock and shoes and ran down to share
          the excitement. When she got down, Phyllis was just
          leading the visitor into the old Colonial living-room,
          and they were having tea brought in. Philip was nowhere
          to be seen.
        </p>
        <p>
          "A <i>wheel</i>barrow!" Phyllis was saying tragically, as
          she took her cup from the waitress, who was listening
          interestedly, if furtively.
        </p>
        <p>
          "A wheelbarrow," assented Miss Addison, a pretty,
          white-haired spinster. She, too, took a cup.
        </p>
        <p>
          Phyllis cast up her eyes in horror and, incidentally, saw
          Joy.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Come in," she said resignedly. "I'm just hearing how
          Philip disported himself at his 'lunchun.'"
        </p>
        <p>
          "I didn't mean to distress you, but I really thought you
          should know, Mrs. Harrington," pursued the visitor
          plaintively.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I'm eternally grateful," murmured Phyllis, beginning, as
          usual, to be overcome with the funny side of the
          situation. "But&#8212;oh, Joy, what <i>do</i> you think
          of my sinful offspring? Miss Addison says Philip spent
          the luncheon hour relating to her how his father went to
          the saloon in the village, had two glasses of beer, was
          entirely overcome, and had to be brought home
          in&#8212;in&#8212;" by this time Phyllis was laughing
          uncontrollably&#8212;"in a <i>wheel</i>barrow!"
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy, too, was aghast for a moment, then the situation
          became too much for her, and she also began to laugh.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Good gracious!" she said.
        </p>
        <p>
          "And that isn't all!" Phyllis went on hysterically.
          "After Allan's friends, or the policeman, or whoever it
          was, tipped him off the wheelbarrow onto the front porch
          (imagine Allan in a wheelbarrow! It would take two for
          the length of him!), he staggered in, and would have
          beaten me, but that my noble son flung himself between!
          Then he was overcome with remorse&#8212;wasn't he, Miss
          Addison?&#8212;and signed the pledge."
        </p>
        <p>
          "Good gracious!" said Joy, inadequately, again.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Now, where on earth," demanded Miss Addison, "did he get
          all that?"
        </p>
        <p>
          "Only the special angel that watches over bad little boys
          knows," said his mother with conviction. "And it won't
          tell. I know by experience that I'll never get it out of
          Philip. He'll say, sweetly, 'Oh, I just <i>fought</i> it,
          Muvver!' in as infantile a voice as possible."
        </p>
        <p>
          They all three sat and pondered.
        </p>
        <p>
          "It sounds just like a tract," said Joy at last.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Exactly like a tract," assented Phyllis. "Do you
          suppose&#8212;in Sunday-school&#8212;&#8212;"
        </p>
        <p>
          "I'm his Sunday-school teacher," Miss Addison reminded
          her indignantly. "That settles <i>that!</i>"
        </p>
        <p>
          "Well, have some more tea, anyway, now the worst is
          over," said her hostess hospitably.... "A
          <i>wheel</i>barrow!"
        </p>
        <p>
          They continued to sit over their teacups and meditate.
          Suddenly Phyllis rose swiftly and made a spring for the
          bookcase, scattering sponge-cake as she went.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I have it, I believe!" she exclaimed. "Well, who'd
          think&#8212;Viola read this to Philip when he was getting
          over the scarlatina last winter. There wasn't another
          child's book in the house that he didn't know by heart,
          and we couldn't borrow on account of the infection. I
          took it away from them, but the mischief was done. But
          he's never spoken of it or seemed to remember it from
          that day to this, and I'd forgotten it, too."
        </p>
        <p>
          She held up a small, dingy book and opened it to the
          title-page.
        </p>
        <p>
          "The Drunkard's Child; or, Little Robert and His Father,"
          it said in lettering of the eighteen-forties.
        </p>
        <p>
          It was unmistakably the groundwork of Philip's romance.
          It had a woodcut frontispiece of Little Robert in a
          roundabout and baggy trousers, inadequately embracing his
          cowering mother's hoopskirt, while his father, the
          Drunkard in question, staggered remorsefully back. It was
          all there, even to the wheelbarrow&#8212;also inadequate.
        </p>
        <p>
          "It didn't hurt Philip's great-grandfather," said his
          mother. "I don't see why it should have affected Philip
          as it did. Different times, different manners, I
          suppose.... The Drunkard's Child!"
        </p>
        <p>
          "Where <i>is</i> he?" Joy thought to ask.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Innocently playing with his little sister in the
          nursery," said Phyllis. "Doubtless teaching her that she
          is a Drunkard's Daughter. I have him still to deal
          with.... A wheelbarrow! I wonder what Allan <i>will</i>
          say?"
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p><a name="ch09"><!--Marker--></a>
        <h2>
          CHAPTER NINE
        </h2>
        <h3>
          THE TANGLED WEB WE WEAVE
        </h3>
        <p>
          "It wasn't so much my behavior after I was wheeled home,"
          said Philip's father mournfully, "as it was my getting so
          outrageously drunk on two glasses of beer. That was the
          final straw. Why couldn't he have made it several quarts
          of brandy, or even knockout drops?"
        </p>
        <p>
          "I hope you don't want an innocent child of that age to
          know about knockout drops!" said Clarence Rutherford, the
          ubiquitous.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Well, there's something wrong with his environment,"
          said Allan.
        </p>
        <p>
          "We are his environment," Phyllis reminded him. "As far
          as I know we are rather nice people."
        </p>
        <p>
          The Harringtons, John Hewitt, with Gail and her cousin,
          not to speak of Joy, were enjoying an unseasonably hot
          day in the Harrington garden. They had all been playing
          tennis, and now everybody was sitting or lying about,
          getting rested. The trees kept the morning sun from being
          too much of a nuisance, and there was a tray with
          lemonade, and sweet biscuits which were unquestionably
          going to ruin everybody's luncheon appetite.
        </p>
        <p>
          "What that child needs," answered his father, taking
          another glass of lemonade and the remaining biscuits, "is
          young life-companions his own age."
        </p>
        <p>
          They had all been racking their brains to think of a
          punishment that would fit Philip's crime, or at least
          some warning that would bring it home to him. He had been
          led by Viola, subdued and courteous, to tell Miss Addison
          that he had deceived her. He did, very carefully.
        </p>
        <p>
          "But it <i>might</i> of been my father," he explained as
          he ended. "Oughtn't we to be glad that it wasn't my
          father, Miss Addison?"
        </p>
        <p>
          Miss Addison, quite nonplused by this unexpected moral
          turn to the conversation, had acknowledged defeat, and
          fed Philip largely. He had a very good time, apparently,
          for he grieved to Viola all the way home over Angela's
          missing such a pleasant afternoon. When he returned he
          flung himself on Allan.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Oh, Father, <i>please</i> let Angela go, too, next time
          I go 'pologizing!" he implored. "There were such nice
          little cakes&#8212;just the kind Mother lets her eat!"
        </p>
        <p>
          Allan shook his head despairingly.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Please remove him, Viola," he said. "I want to think."
        </p>
        <p>
          Not only he, but Phyllis and John, had spent a day
          thinking. No one had, as yet, reached any conclusion at
          all.
        </p>
        <p>
          "It's all very well for you to be carefree," he said now
          to John, who was laughing like the others. "It isn't up
          to you to see that the young idea shoots straight."
        </p>
        <p>
          John's face remained quite cheerful.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Well, you see, I have Joy's manners and morals to look
          after," he said, glancing across at her in a friendly
          way. "That's enough for one man."
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy curled on the warm grass, laughed lazily. She was too
          pleasantly tired from tennis to answer. She only curled
          her feet under her and burrowed into the grass a little
          more, like a happy kitten.
        </p>
        <p>
          It didn't seem as if anything ever need interrupt her
          happiness. And as Phyllis had had the happy thought of
          ordering luncheon brought out to where they were, there
          seemed no reason why they should ever move. There was a
          feeling of unchangingness about the wonderfully holding
          summer weather, and the general lazy routine, that was as
          delightful as it was illusive. For the very next day
          things began to happen.
        </p>
        <p>
          They were just finishing breakfast when a telegram came.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I suppose it's from the De Guenthers, telling us which
          train to meet," Phyllis said carelessly, as she opened
          it.... "Oh!"
        </p>
        <p>
          "What is it, dear?" asked Allan at her exclamation of
          distress.
        </p>
        <p>
          She handed him the telegram.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Isabel suddenly ill with inflammatory rheumatism. Fear
          it may affect heart. Can you come on?"
        </p>
        <p>
          "They're the nearest thing either of us has to
          relatives," Phyllis explained to Joy. "Inflammatory
          rheumatism! Oh, Allan, we ought to go."
        </p>
        <p>
          She looked at him across the table, her blue eyes
          distressed and wide.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Of course you shall go, my dearest," Allan told her
          gently, while Joy wondered what it would be like to have
          some one speak to her in that tone. The Harringtons were
          so careless and joyous in their relations with each
          other, so like a light-hearted, casually intimate brother
          and sister, that it was only when they were moved, as
          now, that their real feelings were apparent.
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy looked off and out the window, and lost herself in a
          day-dream, her hand, as usual, mechanically feeling for
          the rough carving of John's ring.
        </p>
        <p>
          "To be in John's house, close to him, like this, and to
          have him speak to me so&#8212;wouldn't it be wonderful?"
          she thought, with a warm lift of her heart at even the
          vision of it. She forgot the people about her for a
          little, and pictured it to herself.
        </p>
        <p>
          She had only seen two rooms of the Hewitt house, and that
          when they were dressed out of all homelikeness, because
          of the reception. But she could think how they would
          look, with just John Hewitt and herself going up and down
          them. They would be happy, too, in this light-hearted
          fashion&#8212;so happy that they laughed at little
          things. They would not talk much about loving each other.
          But they would belong to each other, and they would know
          it. Each of them would always be there for the other, and
          know it. They would sit by the wood fire in the dusk....
        </p>
        <p>
          "Now to set my house in order," said Phyllis, rising from
          the table. "You said the two train, Allan? All
          right&#8212;I can easily be ready for that, or before, if
          you like."
        </p>
        <p>
          She rang for Lily-Anna, who appeared, smiling and
          comfortable as ever.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Mr. Harrington and I are going off for some
          days&#8212;perhaps longer, Lily-Anna," Phyllis explained.
          "I shall have to leave the children with you and Viola.
          Mrs. De Guenther is very ill."
        </p>
        <p>
          Lily-Anna seemed used to this sort of thing happening,
          and said she could manage perfectly well. Indeed, Viola
          was beamingly amiable over the prospect, when summoned
          and told. She volunteered to do any mending and packing
          necessary on the spot.
        </p>
        <p>
          "How beautifully they take it!" marveled Joy when the
          servants had gone again, full of shining assurances that
          all would be well.
        </p>
        <p>
          "You may well say so!" said Phyllis, lifting her
          eyebrows. "Their rapture at getting the children to
          themselves is almost indecent. It's all very well to have
          such attractive infants, but I sometimes look sadly back
          to the days when Lily-Anna loved me for myself alone. And
          now about you."
        </p>
        <p>
          "Me?" said Joy in surprise. She had not supposed there
          was any question about her.
        </p>
        <p>
          "You," answered Phyllis decisively. "Here is where I am
          given a chance of escape from making a lifelong enemy of
          your future mother-in-law." She crossed to the telephone
          as she spoke, and got Mrs. Hewitt's number. "This is
          Phyllis Harrington," Joy heard her say. "I called up to
          say that I am yielding in our struggle for Joy's person.
          Allan and I have to go away this afternoon. We should
          love to have her stay here and chaperone Philip and
          Angela, but it seems a waste. Would you like to have
          her?"
        </p>
        <p>
          Sounds of fervent acceptance were evidently pouring over
          the wire, for Phyllis smiled as she listened.
        </p>
        <p>
          "She not only wants you," she transmitted to Joy, "but
          she says that she'll take no chances on our changing our
          minds, and is coming for you in an hour, whether we go or
          not. She says to tell you that she's taking you shopping
          first.... You know, we're to have her back when we
          return," she continued firmly to the telephone. "We saw
          her first."
        </p>
        <p>
          She hung up the receiver and swept Joy off upstairs with
          her while she packed.
        </p>
        <p>
          "You know, we may never get you again," she warned. "I'm
          taking a fearful chance in letting you escape this way.
          You have to come back, remember, my child."
        </p>
        <p>
          "Indeed I will come back," Joy promised fervently.
        </p>
        <p>
          It seemed so strange that all these people should so
          completely have made her one of themselves, even to the
          point of wanting to keep her in their homes.
        </p>
        <p>
          "You are all so good to me!" she said.
        </p>
        <p>
          "You are exceedingly lovable," explained Phyllis
          matter-of-factly. "In fact, Clarence remarked the last
          time I saw him that you had the most unusual kind of
          charm he had ever seen. He said you were like a sorceress
          brought up in a nunnery. While I think of it, Joy dear,
          Clarence and Gail are two of the most confirmed
          head-hunters I know. They ought to marry each other and
          keep it in the family, but they won't. I'm not worried
          about anything Gail can do, but do please keep your
          fingers crossed when Clarence drops carelessly in. And
          when he starts discussing your souls turn the
          conversation to the village water-supply or something as
          interesting."
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy smiled a little wistfully.
        </p>
        <p>
          "John doesn't seem to mind," she said. Then she laughed
          outright. "Phyllis, I've seen every one of Clarence's
          tricks all my life. He's the only type I'm accustomed to:
          it's the John and Allan type I don't know."
        </p>
        <p>
          "You certainly are a surprise to me," said Phyllis,
          busily folding a flesh-colored Georgette waist, and
          laying it in a tray with tissue-paper in its sleeves. "I
          don't seem to be able to teach you much, which is a good
          thing. Now you'd better let me help you pack up enough
          for a week, for Mrs. Hewitt is due fairly soon."
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy declined to take any of Phyllis' much-needed time,
          and went off to fill her suitcase. It was not until she
          had put in almost everything she intended to take that
          she thought of the wishing ring again. She looked down at
          the heavy Oriental carving with what was almost terror.
          She had wished for something on it, and once more her
          wish had come true. She was going over to be in the house
          with John, to see him whenever he was there, to have
          him&#8212;yes, he would have to pretend, at least, that
          they were lovers, because of his mother. She had as
          nearly what she had wished for as it was possible for a
          ring to manage.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I almost feel as if I had made that poor old lady have
          the rheumatism," she thought with a thrill of fear. Then
          she pulled herself up&#8212;that was nonsense.
        </p>
        <p>
          "But anyway," Joy told the ring severely, "I won't touch
          you when I make wishes after this. I might wish for
          something in a hurry, and be terribly sorry afterwards."
        </p>
        <p>
          But one thing she did wish then, deliberately. She sat
          back on her heels and clasped her fingers over the heavy
          carving of it. "Please, dear wishing ring, let John be in
          love with me!" she begged. The next moment she was
          scarlet at her own foolishness. The ring couldn't do
          that, if it had belonged to Aladdin himself.
        </p>
        <p>
          So she went on packing. She was a little afraid and
          excited, going off to live in the very house with John,
          but she couldn't help being a little glad. She would see
          him for hours and hours every day.
        </p>
        <p>
          "And oh, dear ring," she whispered, forgetting that she
          had promised not to wish any more, "don't let him get
          tired of having me around!"
        </p>
        <p>
          She was not quite done when she heard the impatient wail
          of Mrs. Hewitt's horn. She stuffed the last things into
          the heavy suitcase and ran down, dragging it after her.
        </p>
        <p>
          Phyllis went out to the car with her, kissing her
          good-by.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Now mind, this is only a loan," she told Mrs. Hewitt.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Nothing of the sort," retorted Mrs. Hewitt with an air
          of certainty. "Good-by, my dear. Give my love to Mrs. De
          Guenther. Perhaps when you get back I may give an
          afternoon tea and allow you to see Joy for a few
          minutes."
        </p>
        <p>
          Phyllis laughed, and patted Mrs. Hewitt's gloved hand
          where it lay on the steering-wheel.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Use our place all you like, as usual," she said in sole
          reply, "and don't forget to miss me."
        </p>
        <p>
          "That's one of the loveliest girls that ever lived," said
          Mrs. Hewitt as they sped away. "Anybody but Phyllis I
          <i>would</i> begrudge you to. Oh, my dear, we're going to
          have the best time!"
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy squeezed the hand that should have been, but wasn't,
          helping the other hand steer. Mrs. Hewitt was so adorably
          a young girl inside her white-haired stateliness!
        </p>
        <p>
          "We're going to the next village to buy materials," she
          told Joy blithely, "and then we're going home to make
          them up, or I am. It won't hurt to get a bit of the
          trousseau under way, and you know I haven't sewed a thing
          for my daughter for thirty-four years&#8212;not since the
          wretched child turned out to be John, and I had to take
          all the pink ribbons out and put in blue!"
        </p>
        <p>
          Mrs. Hewitt's inconsequent good spirits, somehow, took
          away some of the dread with which Joy had been looking
          forward to her sojourn in John's house. She allowed
          herself to be motored over to the next town, where there
          was fairly good shopping, and went obediently into the
          stores. It was not until she saw the lady ordering down
          for inspection bolts of cr&ecirc;pe de Chine and wash
          satin and glove silk in whites and pinks and
          flesh-colors, that the full inwardness of the thing
          dawned on her. For evidently Mrs. Hewitt had every
          intention of paying for all this opulence, and Joy didn't
          quite see what to do about it. Nor did the pocket-money
          her grandfather had given her when she left him warrant
          her paying for the things herself, even if she used it
          all.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Please don't get these things," she whispered when she
          found a chance. "I&#8212;I think I oughtn't to."
        </p>
        <p>
          "Oughtn't to, indeed," replied Mrs. Hewitt coolly.
          "'Nobody asked you, sir, she said!' I'm getting them
          myself. I may be intending to make up a set of wash-satin
          blankets for the Harrington bulldog for all you know. I
          don't think he'd be surprised&#8212;they treat him like a
          long-lost relative now. Now be sensible, darling. Do you
          think valenciennes or filet would be better to trim the
          blankets? Or do you like these lace and organdy motifs?
          They'd look charming on a black bulldog."
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy laughed in spite of herself.
        </p>
        <p>
          "There's no doing anything with you," she said.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Not a thing!" said the triumphant spoiled child whom the
          world took for an elderly lady. "Now we'll get down to
          business. Would you rather have cr&ecirc;pe or satin for
          camisoles? Half of each would be a good plan, I think, if
          you have no choice."
        </p>
        <p>
          There <i>wasn't</i> any doing anything with Mrs. Hewitt.
          She was having a gorgeous time, and she carried Joy along
          with her till the girl was choosing pink and white silks
          and satins, and patterns to make them by, with as much
          enthusiasm as if no day of reckoning loomed up, three and
          a half weeks away.
        </p>
        <p>
          There was no way out. Of course, she would leave the
          things behind. The thought gave her a pang already, for
          Joy had been dressed by her grandfather's ideas only as
          far as frocks went. Her grandmother had seen to
          everything else, and was devoted to a durable material
          known as longcloth, which one buys by the bolt and uses
          forever.
        </p>
        <p>
          But they sped merrily home, after a festive luncheon,
          with about forty dollars' worth of silk and lace and
          ribbon aboard, not to speak of patterns, and a blue
          muslin frock which was a bargain and would just fit Joy,
          and which she had invested in herself.
        </p>
        <p>
          <br>
          &nbsp;&nbsp; <i>"Oh what a tangled web we weave<br>
          &nbsp;&nbsp; When first we practise to deceive!"</i>
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy thought of that quotation so often now that she was
          beginning to feel it was her favorite verse. But she
          touched the big parcel with a small, appreciative foot,
          and remembered that the blue frock, at least, would be
          saved out of the wreck, and that John liked blue.
        </p>
        <p>
          Mrs. Hewitt showed her her bedroom when they got back,
          and left her to take a nap. But she did not want to rest.
          She lay obediently against the pillows and stared out the
          window at a great, vivid maple tree, and felt very much
          like staying awake for the rest of her natural life.
        </p>
        <p>
          "How on earth was I to know that mothers-in-law were like
          this?" she demanded of herself indignantly. "All the ones
          I ever heard about made your life a misery."
        </p>
        <p>
          It is rather calming to remember that you really couldn't
          have foreseen what is happening to you. So Joy presently
          rose happily, smoothed her hair and tidied herself
          generally, and came sedately down the stairs, prepared to
          go on playing her part. Only it was getting to feel more
          like a reality than a pretense. The other life, the one
          she would go back to, seemed the dream now.
        </p>
        <p>
          "John will be here soon," Mrs. Hewitt greeted her. "It
          will be a surprise to him: you know, he hasn't an idea
          you are here. I wouldn't tell him what Phyllis said."
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy dimpled.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Do you suppose he'll mind?" she ventured.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Oh, I think he'll bear up," said Mrs. Hewitt amiably.
          "Come here, Joy; I've cut out a half-dozen of the silk
          ones already. Do you know how to do them? They're just a
          straight piece&#8212;see&#8212;&#8212;"
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy knelt down by her, absorbed in the pretty thing and
          in seeing how to make it. The day was chillier than any
          had yet been, and a fire had been built in the deep
          fireplace of the living-room. Mrs. Hewitt was sitting
          near it, with the pretty scraps of silk and lace all over
          her lap, and an ever-widening circle of cut-out garments
          around her.
        </p>
        <p>
          "We can do the most of these by hand," she mused.
          "Indeed, we shouldn't do them any other way."
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy rooted sewing things out of a basket near by and sat
          down just where she was, between Mrs. Hewitt and the
          large, fatherly Maltese cat who occupied a wonted cushion
          on the other side of the fireplace. And so John found her
          when he came in. The lamp had just been lighted, and its
          soft rays shone on Joy's bronze head and down-bent,
          intent little face. She had on a little white apron that
          Mrs. Hewitt had fastened around her waist, and she was
          sewing hard.
        </p>
        <p>
          Before Joy heard John come in she felt him. No matter how
          tired he was, there was always about John an atmosphere
          of well-being and sunniness, of "all's right with the
          world," that made faces turn to him instinctively when he
          stood in a doorway. But Joy did not raise her eyes to
          look at him, nor did she move.
        </p>
        <p>
          His mother rose and came over to greet him. Joy did not
          hear her whisper: "The child feels a little shy. She'll
          be more at ease now you've come."
        </p>
        <p>
          John came swiftly over to where she sat on the floor,
          very still, with her hands flying, and her eyes on her
          work.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Why, Joy dear, this is a lovely thing that I didn't
          expect," he said gently. "Welcome&#8212;home!"
        </p>
        <p>
          He smiled down at her and held out his hands to help her
          up. Quite unsuspectingly, she pushed her work into the
          pocket along the hem of her sewing-apron and laid her
          hands in his, and he drew her easily to her feet. But,
          instead of releasing her then, he drew her
          closer&#8212;and kissed her, quite as calmly as he had
          his mother a moment before.... No, not quite as calmly.
          Joy felt his arms close around her, as if he was glad to
          have her in his hold.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Let me go," she said in too low a voice for Mrs. Hewitt
          to hear.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Who has drawn the wine must drink it," he told her in
          the same low voice. He went on, still softly, but more
          seriously, "My child, this sort of thing is necessary, if
          you want Mother to be satisfied while you are here.
          It's&#8212;a courtesy to your hostess. I promise to do no
          more of it than is necessary, as it seems to trouble you
          so. But&#8212;don't you see?"
        </p>
        <p>
          He released her, and she stepped away.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I&#8212;see," she answered him a little uncertainly.
          "Th&#8212;thank you.... I&#8212;I couldn't help coming,
          John."
        </p>
        <p>
          Then she fled upstairs to dress for dinner.
        </p>
        <p>
          She puzzled all the time she was dressing. There was no
          use talking&#8212;his mother <i>needn't</i> be amused by
          such things. She would get on perfectly well without
          seeing them. John might think he was doing it as a sacred
          duty&#8212;in spite of her adoration of him it did not
          impress Joy that way.... There were men who kissed you
          just because you were a girl, if you let them; Clarence
          was that kind, according to all accounts. But&#8212;John!
          He was the best, kindest, noblest man she had ever known.
          Every one seemed to have the same feelings about him that
          she had. Even when Clarence had sneered at him he had
          only been able to call him a "reliable citizen."... And
          yet&#8212;he seemed to want to kiss her! He liked it.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Of course," said Joy to herself, with a beating heart
          beneath the wisdom of Aunt Lucilla, "the answer is that
          he probably doesn't know it. Men don't ever seem to know
          things about themselves. But I must remember that it's no
          sign he likes <i>me.</i>"
        </p>
        <p>
          But it was quite true that it was going to have to
          continue. It had dawned on Joy that her will was no match
          for that of the Hewitt family. But it was a very kindly
          will. She smiled a little, irrepressibly, as she clasped
          her girdle&#8212;she was wearing one of the old picture
          dresses&#8212;and went downstairs. For even if you are a
          little impostor who has captured a five-weeks' lover by
          means of a wishing ring, unlimited things to wear are
          nice, and having the man you are in love with want to pet
          you is nice, too!
        </p>
        <p>
          At the top of the stairs a thought struck her. Joy's
          thoughts had a way of arriving suddenly. She had set out
          to be happy. Very well!
        </p>
        <p>
          "I don't see why I shouldn't be engaged to the limit!"
          she thought daringly. "I&#8212;don't&#8212;see&#8212;why
          I shouldn't! ... for just this little while&#8212;just
          this one little while out of my life before I go back to
          the shadows! ... I don't care if I am bad! I don't care
          if I am unmaidenly! I'll be as happy as ever I can.
          They'll think I'm very dreadful, anyway, all of them,
          when they know all about me!"
        </p>
        <p>
          She swept on down the stairs, head up, cheeks flaming.
        </p>
        <p>
          And so, when she came upon John, waiting her courteously
          at the stair-foot, she did just exactly what in her heart
          she desired to do. She stood on the step above him and
          deliberately laid both little white hands on his
          shoulders and smiled into his eyes.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I am so glad I'm here with you," she said, looking at
          him with no attempt to hide the love she felt for him.
          "Are you glad to have your sweetheart in the
          house&#8212;for a little while? Say so&#8212;please,
          dear!"
        </p>
        <p>
          He laughed light-heartedly, and his eyes shone.
        </p>
        <p>
          "A little while?" he answered gaily. "I can stand a lot
          more of you than that, kiddie.... Come, now, Mother's
          waiting. Or shall I lift you down from the step? ... I
          always seem to want to lift you about, somehow, you're so
          little and light&#8212;such a little princess:"
        </p>
        <p>
          He set his hands about her waist, but she slipped from
          him, laughing excitedly.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I believe you think I'm just a doll somebody gave you to
          play with!" she told him with a certain sweet mockery
          that was hers sometimes.... "Come, now, Mother's
          waiting!"
        </p>
        <p>
          She ran down the hall, evading his grasp, and laughing
          back at him over her shoulder, to Mrs. Hewitt and safety.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Come, children, dinner will be cold," said Mrs. Hewitt
          obliviously.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Coming, Mother dear!" answered Joy.
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p><a name="ch10"><!--Marker--></a>
        <h2>
          CHAPTER TEN
        </h2>
        <h3>
          CLARENCE SWOOPS DOWN
        </h3>
        <p>
          It was quite as pleasant to breakfast with John as it had
          been to dine with him, which had been something Joy had
          secretly wondered about. When breakfast was over, he told
          her matter-of-coursely that he was going to take her with
          him on his morning rounds.
        </p>
        <p>
          "You'd better take a book," he advised her practically.
          "If you don't, you'll be bored, because I'll be leaving
          you outside a good deal while I'm inside seeing
          patients."
        </p>
        <p>
          "I'll take my sewing," she told him, trying to be as
          matter-of-fact as he was. "That is, if you don't mind."
        </p>
        <p>
          She was smiling as happily as a child over being allowed
          to go, and he smiled down at her, pleased, too.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Not unless it's too big," he told her with an attempt at
          firmness which failed utterly.
        </p>
        <p>
          She went off, singing under her breath, as usual, to get
          a very small sewing-bag, with a little piece of
          to-be-hemstitched pink silk in it, and John looked over
          at his mother.
        </p>
        <p>
          "She certainly has the prettiest ways!" he said
          involuntarily.
        </p>
        <p>
          "You're a good lover, Johnny," his mother rejoined
          appreciatively.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Nonsense!" said John before he thought, and then pulled
          himself up. "That is&#8212;I don't think a man would have
          to be in love with her to see that," he ended lamely. "I
          thought they were attractive before I&#8212;&#8212;"
        </p>
        <p>
          "Exactly," retorted his mother with distinct skepticism.
          "That's why you&#8212;" She paused in mimicry of his
          breaking off, and, then, as Joy came back, gave him an
          affectionate little push toward the door. She followed
          them out to the gate and leaned over it, watching them.
          "Good-by, children!" she called after them. "Don't be
          late for luncheon!"
        </p>
        <p>
          "Don't stand out there in the wind with no wraps,
          Mother," advised John.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Nonsense!" she replied with spirit. "You have Isabel De
          Guenther's rheumatism on your mind, that's what's the
          matter with you. The idea of a woman of her intelligence
          giving up to inflammatory rheumatism is simply
          ridiculous. You don't get things unless you give up to
          them."
        </p>
        <p>
          It was a beautiful doctrine, and doubtless had much to do
          with making Mrs. Hewitt the healthy and dauntless person
          she was, but it had its limitations, and John reminded
          her of them inexorably.
        </p>
        <p>
          "You have neuritis when you catch cold in the wind, and
          you know it," he told her. "Do go in, Mother, to please
          me."
        </p>
        <p>
          "You know I'll be back again as soon as you're out of
          sight," she observed. But she did go in.
        </p>
        <p>
          Alas for the power of elderly ladies to keep off neuritis
          by defiance! When they came back at twelve-thirty Mrs.
          Hewitt was nowhere to be seen.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Mrs. Hewitt says she has a slight headache, and will you
          please not wait luncheon for her: she's having it
          upstairs," was the message they received.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Very well," said John gravely, and he and Joy proceeded
          to have luncheon alone together.
        </p>
        <p>
          He glanced smilingly across the table at Joy as she
          poured his tea with steady little hands.
        </p>
        <p>
          "It looks very much as if you were going to have to take
          charge, more or less," he said. "That's our friend the
          neuritis. Mother never admits it's anything but a
          headache the first day. Do you think you can look after
          things?"
        </p>
        <p>
          "Why not, if she wants me to?" asked Joy.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Well, I can imagine you standing on a drawbridge or a
          portcullis, or whatever it was they trimmed medieval
          castles with, and waving your hands to the knights going
          by," began John teasingly; "but it's a stretch of
          imagination to fancy a medieval princess pouring my tea
          and seeing that my papers are in order ..."
        </p>
        <p>
          "You <i>know</i> I can't help having red hair," protested
          Joy, coming straight to the point. "And if your
          grandfather had always dressed you in costumes, you
          couldn't get to be modern all at once, either. I think
          I'm doing very well."
        </p>
        <p>
          John threw back his fair head and laughed.
        </p>
        <p>
          The idea of his grandfather, who had been a wholesale
          hardware merchant, with a New England temperament to
          match, "dressing him in costumes," was an amusing one,
          and he said as much.
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy laughed, too.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Well, there, you see!" she said triumphantly. "There's a
          great deal in not having handicaps. Why, there was a poet
          used to write things as if he were me, all about that,
          and I couldn't stop him. One began:
        </p>
        <p>
          <br>
          &nbsp;&nbsp; <i>'I was a princess in an ivory tower:<br>
          &nbsp;&nbsp; Why did you sit below and sing to me?'"</i>
        </p>
        <p>
          "Well," said John, as she paused indignantly, "I'll be
          the goat. Why <i>did</i> he sit below and sing to you?"
        </p>
        <p>
          "Because he wanted the pull Grandfather could give him,
          as far as I could make out," replied Joy with vigor. "And
          I don't call it a bit nice way to act!"
        </p>
        <p>
          She did not quite know why John laughed this time. But
          she was very glad that he was not bored at being with
          her.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Oh, Joy, Joy!" he said. "I take it back. You are not
          medieval&#8212;entirely. Or, if you are, princesses in
          ivory towers are more delightful figures than I've always
          thought them."
        </p>
        <p>
          "We aim to please," said Joy demurely. "But I have to
          explain that a lot, it seems to me. I had it out with
          Clarence Rutherford only a day or so ago."
        </p>
        <p>
          "Oh, you did?" considered John. "Well&#8212;don't try to
          please too hard. Remember that you are supposed to please
          me; but you don't have to extend your efforts beyond my
          family circle."
        </p>
        <p>
          He was only half in earnest, but he was in earnest at
          least half. She wondered just what he meant for a moment,
          then it occurred to her that he meant Clarence, no less.
          She was on the verge of saying comfortingly:
        </p>
        <p>
          "Clarence is just trying to make me fall in love with
          him. He doesn't count a bit."
        </p>
        <p>
          But she stopped herself, remembering that Aunt Lucilla
          would never have said such an unwise thing, let alone
          Gail.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I must go now and see how your mother is, as soon as we
          are through," she told him instead.
        </p>
        <p>
          She found Mrs. Hewitt surrounded by more hot-water
          bottles than she had ever thought existed, and reduced to
          the point where she was nearly willing to confess to
          neuritis.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I have pains all over me, child," she announced, "and as
          long as you are here I shall continue to describe them,
          so you'd better run. And if you tell John it's neuritis I
          shall probably take you over to Phyllis' fountain and
          drown you the first day I'm up. It will be an annoyingly
          chilly death if the weather keeps on as it is
          now&#8212;&#8212;"
        </p>
        <p>
          She stopped in order to give a little wriggle and a
          little moan, and saw John standing in the doorway.
        </p>
        <p>
          "How's the neuritis, Mother?" he inquired
          sympathetically.
        </p>
        <p>
          "You know perfectly well," said his mother without
          surprise, "that I can't spare one of these hot-water
          bottles to throw at you, John, and I think you're taking
          a despicable advantage."
        </p>
        <p>
          "I'll get you some more hot water," said he placidly,
          collecting two red bags and a gray one, and crossing to
          her stationary washstand.
        </p>
        <p>
          "There's a lower stratum you might get, Joy," suggested
          Mrs. Hewitt, and Joy reached down at the hint and secured
          the two remaining bottles, which she filled when John was
          through.
        </p>
        <p>
          "That's <i>much</i> better," Mrs. Hewitt thanked them,
          with what was very like a purr.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Incidentally," said John with concern in his voice,
          "it's about all anybody can do for you till the weather
          changes; that and being careful of your diet."
        </p>
        <p>
          "Yes, and I got it this morning standing out in the damp
          and chill, watching you out of sight. Watching people out
          of sight is unlucky, anyway," said his mother. "I might
          as well say it, if you won't. And I don't expect to be
          able to get up tomorrow, which is Thursday."
        </p>
        <p>
          "Thursday?" asked John, sitting down on the couch at the
          foot of the bed. "Is Thursday some special feast?"
        </p>
        <p>
          "Thursday's the cook's day out, usually," explained Joy
          practically. "But she doesn't need to worry. Dear, if
          you'll tell me what to do&#8212;&#8212;"
        </p>
        <p>
          "Usually Nora attends to things that day," explained Mrs.
          Hewitt sadly, but with a trace of hope in her voice, "but
          tomorrow she has a funeral she must attend. Quite a close
          funeral, she explained to me; the remains was a dear
          friend!"
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy smiled down on Mrs. Hewitt like a Rossetti angel.
        </p>
        <p>
          "You don't need to worry a bit," she consoled. "How many
          meals will she be gone?"
        </p>
        <p>
          "Only one," Mrs. Hewitt told her, with what was obviously
          a lightened heart. "Dinner."
        </p>
        <p>
          "Just dinner for us three? Why, I can manage that
          easily," said Joy confidently. "At least&#8212;I hope
          I'll suit. I really can cook."
        </p>
        <p>
          "You blessed angel! Of course you'll suit!" said Mrs.
          Hewitt. "I'm so glad. John <i>does</i> like good meals."
        </p>
        <p>
          She moaned a little, rather as if it was a luxury, and
          turned cautiously over.
        </p>
        <p>
          "You don't have to stay with me any longer, children,"
          she said. "The last responsibility is off my conscience.
          And I may state, in passing, John, that I never imagined
          you had sense enough to pick out anybody as satisfactory
          as Joy."
        </p>
        <p>
          They both laughed a little, and then John said, abruptly,
          that he had to go soon, and swept Joy off with him.
          Outside the door he stopped short.
        </p>
        <p>
          "See here, Joy, you mustn't do things like that," he said
          abruptly. "You're a guest, not a maid."
        </p>
        <p>
          She set her back against the closed door they had just
          emerged from and looked up at him.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Please let me go on playing," she begged him with a
          little break in her voice. "You know I never had any
          mother to speak of, any more than she had any daughter,
          and&#8212;and&#8212;please!"
        </p>
        <p>
          He put his hand under her chin and lifted her face to
          look at it keenly.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Do you really like her so, child?" he said.
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy hoped he would not feel her cheek burn under his
          touch.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Yes," she answered simply. "And&#8212;and now I must go
          and plan a dazzling menu, please, and look in the icebox
          without hurting the cook's feelings. It's a case of,
          'Look down into the icebox, Melisande!' as Clarence
          Rutherford would put it."
        </p>
        <p>
          But she did not say the last sentence aloud. She only
          laughed as the phrase presented itself to her.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Now, what are you laughing at?" demanded John.
        </p>
        <p>
          "If I told you," said Joy like an impertinent child,
          "you'd know. And now, dear sir, you have to go out on
          your rounds. Be sure to be back in time for
          dinner&#8212;my dinner. I'm going to plan it tonight,
          even if I don't cook it."
        </p>
        <p>
          He didn't seem angry at her&#8212;only amused.
        </p>
        <p>
          "You plan a dinner&#8212;fairy princess!" he teased her,
          looking down at her picturesque little figure from his
          capable, broad-shouldered height.
        </p>
        <p>
          "See if I can't!" said Joy defiantly.
        </p>
        <p>
          And he saw.
        </p>
        <p>
          When he got back that evening, cold and tired and a
          little unhappy over a child in his care who did not seem
          to be gaining, Joy met him at the door, drawing him into
          the warmth and light with two little warm hands. She had
          dressed herself in the little blue muslin frock she had
          bought herself the morning before. It had a white fichu
          crossing and tying behind, which gave her the look,
          somehow, of belonging in the house. Her hair was parted
          demurely and pinned into a great coil at the back of her
          head, held by a comb that he recognized as his mother's.
          What he did not recognize or remember was that he had
          told her once that his dream-girl "had her hair
          parted&#8212;and wore blue&#8212;and was connected
          somehow with an open fire." But he knew that she looked
          very sweet and lovely and very much as if she belonged
          where she was.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Oh, come in, dear!" she cried. "You're tired. Come to
          the fire a minute before you go upstairs."
        </p>
        <p>
          She spoke almost as if she were his wife, and he looked
          less tired as he came to her.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I like being welcomed home this way," he told her,
          putting his arm around her, instead of releasing her, and
          going with her into the living-room. "Why, Joy, I take it
          all back about your not being able to keep house. One
          look at you would make anybody sure of it.... Are you
          doing it all for Mother, dear?" he broke off unexpectedly
          to ask her. "Aren't you doing it a little bit for me?"
        </p>
        <p>
          She looked up at him, flushing.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Yes&#8212;a little bit&#8212;" she said breathlessly.
          Then she made herself speak more lightly. "I did make the
          dressing and the pudding sauce myself," she admitted as
          gaily as she could for a fast-beating heart. "But I hoped
          there weren't traces. Is there flour on my face?"
        </p>
        <p>
          She smiled flashingly at him and tipped her face up
          provokingly, slipping from his hold where they stood by
          the fire together. He made one step close to her again.
        </p>
        <p>
          "You know perfectly well what to expect for a question
          like that," he said with an unaccustomed excitement in
          his voice, and kissed her.
        </p>
        <p>
          Usually when he did that Joy made some struggle to
          escape. But tonight, in the firelight, a little tired and
          very glad to see him, she kissed him back, as if she were
          veritably his.
        </p>
        <p>
          He dropped on one knee beside the blaze, drawing her down
          on the hearth-rug by him.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I feel like the man in the fairy-stories," he said in a
          voice Joy did not quite know, "who catches an elf-girl in
          some unfair way, and finds her turn to a dear human woman
          in his house. Joy ... will she stay human?"
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy's heart beat furiously as she knelt there, held close
          to his side. The little head with its great coil of
          glittering hair drooped.
        </p>
        <p>
          "She&#8212;she always was human," she half whispered, her
          throat tightening with excitement. She could feel the
          blood stealing up over her face.
        </p>
        <p>
          "That is no answer, Joy, my dear," he said softly.
        </p>
        <p>
          But it was at this moment that a voice behind the
          curtains said, "Dinner is served."
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy sprang up, but John stayed where he was, his broad
          shoulders and fair head bent a little forward as he
          looked into the blaze.
        </p>
        <p>
          She touched his arm timidly.
        </p>
        <p>
          "John&#8212;please&#8212;you must go up and see your
          mother before dinner."
        </p>
        <p>
          He roused himself from whatever he had been thinking of
          and turned to her.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I must, certainly," he replied, springing up. "I think I
          am answered.... Am I not, dear?"
        </p>
        <p>
          "Why, yes," said Joy with a little surprise, but as
          gently and confidently as ever. "I answered you. I always
          do what you tell me, don't I?"
        </p>
        <p>
          He touched her hair lightly and smiled for an answer as
          he passed her on his way up. She heard him whistling
          light-heartedly above, as she, too, stood staring into
          the fire.
        </p>
        <p>
          She hadn't thought that any one could be so very kind and
          lovely as John was being to her tonight. She could feel
          yet the pressure of his arm as he held her beside him.
          And it was going to last a great deal longer&#8212;weeks
          longer! She could be as happy and as much with him and as
          much to him as she wanted to. There would be Clarence's
          mocking love-making, too, for flattery and amusement. And
          when she had to go back home, at last, she would have so
          much happiness, so much good times, so much love to
          remember, that it would keep her warm and happy for years
          and years!
        </p>
        <p>
          When John returned, his hair damp and nearly straight with
          brushing, and his eyes still bright with laughter, she
          was sitting at the head of the table, waiting for him
          happily.
        </p>
        <p>
          "It's a nice world, isn't it?" she suggested like a
          child. "And do you like whipped cream in your tomato
          bisque?"
        </p>
        <p>
          "It is, and I do, very much. Am I to have it?"
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy nodded proudly, her eyes shining.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I don't know about the world, but you are going to have
          the whipped cream," she said, as she felt for the
          electric push-button in the floor with one small,
          circling foot.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I might as well tell you now," said John gaily, "that
          the bell you are trying to step on is disconnected.
          Mother unhooked it eight months ago, because when she was
          excited she always forgot and stamped on it. I think we
          use a glass and a knife."
        </p>
        <p>
          "Oh!" said Joy. "Well, I haven't the
          technique&#8212;would you?"
        </p>
        <p>
          But Nora came in with the soup just then without having
          been rung for, having evidently been hovering
          sympathetically near.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Pardon me, Doctor, but the bell is connected up," she
          breathed. "I hooked it up myself as soon as Mrs. Hewitt
          gave Miss Havenith the housekeeping."
        </p>
        <p>
          It had evidently been a sore point with Nora&#8212;and,
          if the truth were told, with John, who had an orderly
          mind. Although he adored his flyaway, irresponsible
          mother, it was in spite of her ways and not because of
          them.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Do you think you are apt to get excited and step on the
          bell?" he asked Joy.
        </p>
        <p>
          She shook her head.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I like things the way they're planned," she confessed.
          "They go along more easily."
        </p>
        <p>
          "I suppose," he meditated aloud, "you might even put a
          man's collars in the same place twice running."
        </p>
        <p>
          "Where else?" demanded Joy, who was so thoughtful of such
          things that she was even intrusted with certain duties of
          the sort for Grandfather.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Well, Mother hasn't repeated herself for twenty-eight
          years," said John a little wistfully. "She says she
          doesn't intend to get in a rut, nor let me."
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy laughed aloud.
        </p>
        <p>
          "It must take lots of spare time, hunting new spots!" she
          said. "I'm afraid I'd think life was too short to take
          all that trouble."
        </p>
        <p>
          "I'm coming to the conclusion that there's nothing you
          can't do," he said irrelevantly. "But I suppose you had a
          very able godmother&#8212;princesses do, don't they?"
        </p>
        <p>
          "I have a wishing ring," Joy explained, entering into the
          play. "It's very well trained. All I have to do is to
          tell it things, and it sees to them immediately."
        </p>
        <p>
          John went on eating his soup.
        </p>
        <p>
          "You look as if you wanted to ask it to do something,"
          she pursued.
        </p>
        <p>
          He looked thoughtful.
        </p>
        <p>
          "As a matter of fact, I do; but it seems an unfair
          advantage to take not only of a docile wishing ring, but
          of you," he stated.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Try us and see," invited Joy, ringing, with a visible
          satisfaction in things, for the next course.
        </p>
        <p>
          So John took courage.
        </p>
        <p>
          "It's socks," he confessed with a boyish shame-facedness.
          "I&#8212;I'd like to see how you'd look doing them. I
          can't quite make myself see you, even now.... I suppose
          I'm silly&#8212;I'd like to see you sitting under the
          light in there, sewing for me, just once."
        </p>
        <p>
          "You mean mending, not sewing," Joy told him cheerfully.
          However the wishing ring may have felt about the request,
          the princess was frankly delighted, "Have you got many? I
          do them very fast!"
        </p>
        <p>
          John still looked doubtful. He still seemed to feel that
          it was a mean advantage to take of the most domesticated
          ring and princess.
        </p>
        <p>
          "You see," he explained, "Mother's idea is&#8212;and it's
          likely a very good one&#8212;that when socks have holes
          you throw 'em away and get more. She doesn't make
          allowance, though, for one's getting attached to a pair.
          And I bought six pairs lately that I liked awfully well,
          and I hated to see them die.... They're just little
          holes."
        </p>
        <p>
          "I'll get them and do them as soon as we're through
          dinner," she promised. "Won't your mother mind?"
        </p>
        <p>
          "She'll be delighted," John promised sincerely. "But she
          hasn't them. I have."
        </p>
        <p>
          Accordingly, after dinner Joy demanded them, and John
          produced them, while she got out her mending-basket,
          something he had never suspected her of possessing, he
          told her.
        </p>
        <p>
          She sat down under the lamp with her work, tying on the
          little sewing-apron Mrs. Hewitt had given her the day
          before.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Why, they scarcely have holes at all," she marveled. "I
          can do lots more than these."
        </p>
        <p>
          "There are lots more," said John rather mournfully. But
          he did not feel particularly mournful. He was absorbed in
          the picture she made sitting there by the lamp, near the
          fire, her red mouth smiling to itself a little, and her
          black lashes shadowing her cheeks as her hands moved
          deftly at her work. John himself, on the other side of
          the fire, had a paper across his knees, but he forgot to
          read it, watching her. She seemed to turn the place into
          a home, sitting there quietly happy, swiftly setting her
          tiny, accurately woven stitches.
        </p>
        <p>
          John's mother was an adorable playmate, but
          responsibilities were, to her, something to laugh about.
          She had always declared that John should have been her
          father, not her son; and he had always tried to fill the
          role as best he could. But there had always been things,
          though he had never admitted it to himself, that he had
          missed. It would have been pleasant to him if there had
          been some one who shared his interest in the looks of the
          place and in the gardens and orchards that were his
          special pride. He would have liked to have his mother
          care about his patients, to play for him in the evenings,
          perhaps, and to think about his tastes in little things.
          But though a tall harp stood in a corner of the
          living-room, and a piano was somewhere else, they were
          not often touched. Mrs. Hewitt was passionately
          interested in people. She loved traveling and
          house-parties and fads of all kinds&#8212;but she had no
          roots to speak of. John had never felt so much as if his
          house was his home as he did tonight, with the cold rain
          dashing against the windows outside, and inside the warm
          light, and the busy girl sitting across from him, sewing,
          and smiling to herself.
        </p>
        <p>
          She looked up, as he glanced across at her contentedly,
          and spoke.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I thought you seemed a little down tonight when you came
          in, John. How is the little La Guardia girl? You were
          having something of a struggle over her treatment the
          last time I went with you."
        </p>
        <p>
          "By Jove, you have a memory!" said John, seeming a little
          startled. "The child is worse today, and it was on my
          mind. How on earth did you guess it, Joy?"
        </p>
        <p>
          She only laughed softly.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Don't you suppose I'm interested in your affairs? I
          don't like you to be worried. And I knew Giulia La
          Guardia was the only patient who wasn't doing well at
          last accounts. Just what is the trouble?"
        </p>
        <p>
          John leaned forward and began to tell her about the
          child. Her blue eyes glanced up and down, back and forth,
          from him to her sewing, as she listened, and occasionally
          asked a question. They had both forgotten everything but
          the room and themselves, when they heard a genial male
          voice in the hall.
        </p>
        <p>
          "No, indeed, my dear girl," it said, "I don't need to be
          announced in the very least. I'll go straight in."
        </p>
        <p>
          And in just as brief a time as it might take an active
          young man to shed his overshoes and his raincoat, in
          walked Clarence Rutherford, as gay as always, and
          unusually secure of his welcome.
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p><a name="ch11"><!--Marker--></a>
        <h2>
          CHAPTER ELEVEN
        </h2>
        <h3>
          PIRATE COUSINS TO THE RESCUE
        </h3>
        <p>
          "Thought I'd drop in and tell you some inspiriting news,
          it's such a beastly night," said he with
          <i>empressement</i>. "&#8212;Princess Melisande! What
          have they been doing to you?" he broke off to ask
          tenderly under his breath. "Our little princess turned
          into a Cinderella!"
        </p>
        <p>
          His tone was calculated to induce self-pity in the breast
          of an oyster. But Joy, though she liked it mildly, did
          not feel moved to tears. Clarence was an interruption,
          even if a flattering one.
        </p>
        <p>
          "My mother is ill," explained John, when Clarence had
          greeted him also in his most setting-at-ease manner.
          ("Kind of a man who'd try to make you welcome in your own
          house!" he growled under his breath. John also felt
          interrupted.)
        </p>
        <p>
          But Clarence established himself friendlily in a third
          chair, and told Joy with charming masterfulness that she
          was to put down her work immediately and listen to him.
        </p>
        <p>
          "We're going to get up a Gilbert and Sullivan opera,"
          said he. "Now it stands to reason that we have to have
          you. I can tell by the pretty way you speak you have a
          good stage delivery, and you have all sorts of presence.
          Question is, have you a voice? If so, much honor shall be
          yours."
        </p>
        <p>
          "Well, I've had lessons for years, and they say so,"
          offered Joy modestly. "It's mezzo-soprano&#8212;lyric."
        </p>
        <p>
          Both men looked at her in surprise. People were always
          being surprised at things she knew&#8212;as if she had
          ever done anything in her life but be trained&#8212;for
          no particular purpose, as it had seemed. And now
          everything she knew seemed to be going to be useful, one
          way or another. Harp lessons, singing lessons, lessons in
          the proper way to speak Grandfather's poetry&#8212;there
          had never seemed to be any particular point to any of
          them. And now everything was falling into line.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Go on," said Clarence. "But I forgot, you said you
          couldn't dance."
        </p>
        <p>
          "Only the kind that people do in&#8212;bare feet and
          Greek draperies, and I hate that," Joy answered
          deprecatingly.
        </p>
        <p>
          "You are a Philistine," said Clarence. "But it's
          attractive."
        </p>
        <p>
          "One of Grandfather's friends does it for a living, and
          taught me, as a token of affection and esteem, she called
          it. Would it be any use?"
        </p>
        <p>
          "Use?" said Clarence rapturously. "You are exactly what
          the doctor ordered. If I can stun Gail into submission
          you shall be our leading lady, with all the real star
          parts in your grasp. Rehearsals at ten sharp, and
          <i>I'm</i> the director. <i>Me voici!</i>"
        </p>
        <p>
          He rose and made her a deep bow.
        </p>
        <p>
          He had, apparently, quite forgotten John, who still sat
          quietly with his paper across his knees, listening to
          them.
        </p>
        <p>
          "And where do I come in?" he asked with a little twinkle
          in his eyes.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Oh-oh yes," returned Clarence genially, "my dear fellow,
          how could we have forgotten you? Good old John, to want a
          part!"
        </p>
        <p>
          He sounded to Joy rather too much as if he was saying,
          "Good old Fido!"
        </p>
        <p>
          "It's something like saying it to a large dog with a
          bite, too," she meditated naughtily. "Clarence may find
          that out in a minute."
        </p>
        <p>
          She went on with her domestic duties, mending the tiny
          holes in the socks in her lap, and smiling secretly to
          herself. It did not occur to her, but if any one had told
          her a month before that she would be sitting alone with
          two interesting men, watching their relations becoming
          more and more strained on her account, she would have
          denied it flatly. Now that it was happening it seemed
          quite natural. It had doubtless seemed quite natural to
          Aunt Lucilla.... She darned on placidly, while Clarence
          continued his infuriating efforts to put John at ease.
        </p>
        <p>
          "There'll be a delightful part for you, old man," he
          assured his friend tenderly. "Don't worry about that.
          You'll have your chance."
        </p>
        <p>
          The idea of a dominant, large-ideaed, hardworking John
          Hewitt hungering for "his chance" in an amateur comic
          opera struck Joy as so funny that she couldn't repress a
          small giggle and a glance across at him. John caught her
          look and gave her an answering gleam of amusement.
        </p>
        <p>
          "You have the kindest heart in the world, Rutherford,"
          said he sedately, "and I'll never forget it of you. ...
          Joy, my dear, would you mind running upstairs and seeing
          if Mother needs anything? And you may put away those
          socks you've been doing in my top drawer at the same
          time."
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy stiffened a little at the tone of easy authority, and
          then caught John's eye again. The amused look was still
          there&#8212;that, and a look of certainty that she would
          help him play his hand. He was getting neatly back at
          Clarence!
        </p>
        <p>
          She rose meekly.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Yes, John," she said in the very tone she would have
          used if the alternative had been a beating, and excusing
          herself to Clarence in the same meek voice, took herself
          and her completed work upstairs.
        </p>
        <p>
          A glance at her room through the crack of the door told
          Joy that Mrs. Hewitt was sleeping sweetly. She opened the
          door of John's room with a more fearful heart. It seemed
          a little frightening to go into his own private room
          where he lived. She pushed open the door and tiptoed in.
        </p>
        <p>
          It was a large room, very orderly, with a faint, fresh
          smell of cigars and toilet water about it&#8212;the smell
          that no amount of airing can ever quite drive out of a
          man's room. Joy liked it. The dresser, flanked by a
          tie-rack, faced her as she came in. She ran to it, jerked
          out a drawer and stuffed in the socks hurriedly, and
          turned to go down again. In the middle of the room she
          paused for a moment. It was all so intimately, dearly
          John, and she did love John so!... And what was she,
          after all, with all her independences and certainties,
          but an ignorant, unwise child whom two wise grown men
          were using for a pet or a plaything&#8212;how could she
          tell which?
        </p>
        <p>
          She felt suddenly little and frightened and helpless. The
          current of mischief and merriment dropped away from her
          for a minute, here where everything, from the class
          picture on the wall to the pipe on the bureau, spoke so
          of John&#8212;of what everything about him meant to
          her&#8212;about what going away from him would mean. She
          flung herself on her knees beside the narrow iron cot in
          the corner, her arms out over the pillow where his head
          rested.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Oh, God, please make it all come straight and right!"
          she begged. "I don't suppose I did what I ought to, and
          maybe I'm not now, but please do let things come out the
          way they should! And if you can't make us both happy,
          make John&#8212;but&#8212;oh, God, please try to tuck me
          in too&#8212;I do want to be happy so!"
        </p>
        <p>
          She knelt there a little longer, with her arms thrown out
          over the pillow. Saying her prayers always comforted her.
          She waited till she was quieter. Then she rose resolutely
          and dried her eyes, and went downstairs again, to make
          her report.
        </p>
        <p>
          She found that Clarence was gone.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I got rid of him," John explained serenely to her
          questioning glance. "You didn't need him particularly,
          did you, kiddie?"
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy lifted her eyebrows.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Not particularly," she replied, "but I should have liked
          to say good-night to him."
        </p>
        <p>
          "I felt exactly that way myself," responded John
          cheerfully, "so I did. I was like the man in the Ibsen
          parody, who said, 'I will not only make him <i>feel</i>,
          but be at home!'" He paused a moment, and looked graver.
          "Come here, kiddie," he said.
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy had been standing just inside the door all this time,
          on tiptoe for flight. She came slowly over in response to
          his beckoning hand, and he drew her down to a stool
          beside him, keeping his arm around her.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Little girl," he said, "you're young, and you're
          inexperienced, and I don't want to see you let Rutherford
          go too far. I'd rather you didn't take part in this
          affair he's getting up."
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy started back from his encircling arm, and looked at
          him reproachfully.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Oh, John! Why, I want to <i>dreadfully!</i>"
        </p>
        <p>
          "It isn't that I want to take any pleasure away from
          you," he explained. "It's simply that the opera would of
          necessity throw you into closer contact with
          Clarence&#8212;and I don't think you quite understand
          what Clarence is. He is very attractive, but, as I have
          told you before, he is not a man I would trust. A man who
          goes as deliberately about making women in love with him
          as he does, with a frank admission to other men that he
          collects them, isn't a man I want you to have much to do
          with."
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy moved away from the arm entirely. She felt hurt.
        </p>
        <p>
          "In other words, you're afraid he'll toy with my young
          affections?" she answered flippantly. "Very
          well&#8212;let him try! Goodness knows he's labeled
          loudly enough. Every time he comes within a mile somebody
          says that about him. Everything about him says it for
          itself, for the matter of that. It isn't any secret. Let
          him toy! It amuses him and doesn't hurt me."
        </p>
        <p>
          "If I could be sure it wouldn't hurt you&#8212;" said
          John in a low voice. "He is very fascinating, Joy."
        </p>
        <p>
          There was a note of pain in John's voice, but Joy did not
          heed it.
        </p>
        <p>
          "<i>You</i> are hurting me!" she said angrily, rising.
          "How can you&#8212;&#8212;"
        </p>
        <p>
          She did not finish. She had been going to say, "How can
          you talk that way when I belong to you?" but she had not
          the courage. He could never know how much she belonged to
          him. "I very much want to be in this opera, and I think I
          shall," she said definitely.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I have no way of preventing you," he answered coldly.
        </p>
        <p>
          "But can't you trust me not to be silly?" she asked in a
          softer tone. "Oh, John, I'll promise not to let Clarence
          break my heart. I promise not to let <i>anything</i>
          break it. Good-night."
        </p>
        <p>
          She gathered up her mending-basket, set her chair
          carefully where it had belonged, and went slowly out of
          the room without another word.
        </p>
        <p>
          She did not know how John would greet her next morning.
          But he proved to be no more of a malice-bearing animal
          than she, and when she smiled brightly at him over the
          coffee-cups he smiled back in quite as friendly a
          fashion, and they had a very cheerful breakfast
          together&#8212;so cheerful that John was late getting out
          on his rounds. At the door he paused, looking back at
          her.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Look here, kiddie, I wasn't fair about that thing last
          night," he said. "I've been thinking it over. I haven't a
          right in the world to ask you to keep out of something
          that would give you pleasure. Go on and play all the
          parts there are in it if you like. I'll be in it myself,
          in the 'nice part' Rutherford is so considerately saving
          up for me&#8212;" he grinned&#8212;"and&#8212;&#8212;"
        </p>
        <p>
          "And if you see me being swept off my feet you can wave
          your handkerchief, or something," ended Joy for him, and
          they both laughed. And so peace was restored, and Joy
          went on about her morning duties with a happy heart. It
          seemed to her, as she thought of him while she worked,
          that he had been unwontedly tender of her as he bade her
          good-by. She could not think why. At any rate she was
          very happy, and she sang as she sat at the living-room
          desk, after her morning inspection of the ice-box,
          writing out the list for the marketing, and the menus for
          that day's luncheon and dinner.
        </p>
        <p>
          The maids took a deep interest in her, and if instant
          obedience and willing service meant anything, approved of
          her. This was the day when she was going to have to get
          the dinner all herself, and she was looking forward to it
          with pleasure. She had never been left to herself to do
          anything at home, because Grandmother and old Elizabeth
          had seen her toddle into the kitchen and "want to help"
          when she was four, and they therefore honestly thought
          she was four still where judgment was concerned.
        </p>
        <p>
          As she sat and hummed to herself and wrote, the telephone
          rang. She sprang to it with that unquestioned obedience
          which telephone-bells cow us into, and listened. The
          Harrington children had called her up a couple of times,
          and she thought it might be Philip. Or maybe Clarence.
          But instead, she heard Gail's slow, assured voice.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Clarence has been telling me the sad story of your
          life," she drawled, "and implores me to rescue you. I'm
          coming over to do it in a moment or so&#8212;as soon as I
          can detach Harold Gray from my side.... I've told him he
          also must devote himself to your service, so expect him
          along some time today."
        </p>
        <p>
          She hung up without waiting for an answer, before Joy
          could do anything. She sat back in her chair, staring out
          the window in dismay. She had no idea what Clarence might
          have said about anything, but she devoutly wished he
          hadn't said it. She did not want Gail in her house. She
          caught herself up. That was the way she was coming to
          think of it&#8212;her house!
        </p>
        <p>
          "Well, it isn't," she reminded herself. "After all, I'm a
          pilgrim and a stranger, and Gail is an old friend."
        </p>
        <p>
          She returned to her list and her planning, though the fun
          was all out of it; and when Gail arrived a half-hour
          later, a bunch of chrysanthemums in her belt and a small
          grip in her hand, she greeted her with admirable calm.
        </p>
        <p>
          She wished for a moment that Clarence had seen fit to
          come himself. He might say too familiar things, but at
          least there was an undertone of admiration about him very
          comforting in Gail's half-scornful presence. Also he sat
          on Gail occasionally in a calm and brotherly manner which
          cheered.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Poor little Cinderella!" Gail greeted her. "I hear that
          Mrs. Hewitt has dropped all the housekeeping on your
          shoulders, John makes you do all the
          sewing&#8212;including his clothes, I suppose&#8212;and
          treats you like a ten-year-old child. Even allowing for
          Clarence's passionate transports you seem to be quite
          painfully noble in your acquiescence.... I have come to
          see to this!"
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy stiffened.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Thank you, I am perfectly happy," she stated
          untruthfully. "Won't you sit down?"
        </p>
        <p>
          Gail flung her hat and cloak on a distant settee, and
          dropped her grip at her feet.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Not till I go up and see poor dear Mamma Hewitt," she
          answered. "Poor darling, she must be lonely!"
        </p>
        <p>
          She sauntered out of the room, leaving Joy at the desk.
          She was down again in a few minutes. Gail never seemed to
          hurry. She merely got where she wanted to be with no
          visible effort. She nodded to Joy as she entered the room
          again, and dropped into a morris chair.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Mrs. Hewitt says I am to go as far as I like," she
          informed Joy, half-amusedly. "Mother never seems to want
          any help at home, thank goodness, and all I have to do
          over there is to amuse little friends who drop in. You
          get tired of that after awhile. I told Clarence to send
          away any suitors who might trail over!"
        </p>
        <p>
          She flung her arms up over her head and laughed a little
          to herself, stretching her whole indolent, graceful body.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I like new things to amuse myself with," she informed
          Joy. "Now you'll send the maids in."
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy did not like any of this. And she found herself more
          and more certain that she did not like Gail Maddox.
        </p>
        <p>
          "If she has all those lovers," she thought resentfully,
          like a child, "why doesn't she stay home and play with
          them instead of coming over here where we were perfectly
          happy without her?"
        </p>
        <p>
          But she was too proud to do anything about it, so instead
          of going up to Mrs. Hewitt's bedroom to appeal to Caesar
          she went to the kitchen without further comment, and
          informed the maids that Mrs. Hewitt had decided Miss
          Maddox was to have charge for the day.
        </p>
        <p>
          The lively chorus of growls with which this was received
          cheered Joy's unregenerate heart. She did not stay to
          either soothe or encourage the rebellion.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I've told the maids," she said colorlessly to Gail,
          returning.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Good infant," said Gail, and proceeded to gather the
          flowers out of the vases where Joy had herself arranged
          them a half-hour before, and rearrange them.
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy watched her for a minute or so. Then&#8212;"You
          aren't going to need me?" she asked with a misleading
          quietness. "Because if you aren't I&#8212;I have
          something to do for a little while."
        </p>
        <p>
          "Not a bit. Run along," granted Gail. "I'll have some
          toil ready for you when you get back, if you like."
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy was like the lady in the poem, who died in such a
          hurry.
        </p>
        <p>
          <br>
          &nbsp;&nbsp; "She did not stop to don her coat,<br>
          &nbsp;&nbsp; She did not stop to smooth her bed."
        </p>
        <p>
          She fled hatless in the direction of a place that had
          always meant soothed feelings and comfort generally, the
          Harrington house. Phyllis wouldn't be there, to be sure,
          but the place would have her peace and sunniness about
          it.
        </p>
        <p>
          The children were ranging up and down the garden paths
          with squeals and shouts of happiness which were,
          apparently, merely because of life in general. They fell
          upon her with still wilder shouts; or at least Philip
          did, while Angela clung as far up as she could reach.
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy hugged all the children she could reach with a warm
          sense of gratitude to them for wanting her, and (still
          led by gratitude) entered enthusiastically into tag
          herself. It was quite new to her, because she had never
          played children's games, but she found that she liked it
          exceedingly.... Suppose Gail did go slidingly around
          explaining to everybody convincingly that everybody else
          was in love with her&#8212;suppose it was even true? Why,
          even then&#8212;when you're young and alive it's fun to
          go running up and down a garden in the stimulating
          October air.
        </p>
        <p>
          They ended in the big swing. Philip insisted on doing
          most of the pushing, because, as he explained, they were
          all girls and he wasn't. Joy held little Angela fast, and
          gave herself up to the delight of being swung. Philip
          pushed her higher and higher, till they were both
          screaming with pleasure, and, when the swing was at the
          top, could see over the tall hedge to the road outside.
        </p>
        <p>
          There was something chugging inquiringly out there. And
          it was&#8212;it was, indeed, John's little doctor-car.
          And it held John, and it was slowing up. As these facts,
          one by one, became apparent to Joy and Angela in their
          excursions above the hedge, there was great happiness in
          the garden.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I knew he'd come!&#8212;He said he'd come!" announced
          Philip gleefully, pushing like mad. "He said he would!
          He's been here every day since they went. I asked him
          yesterday"&#8212;these sentences were interspersed with
          the pantings necessary to pushing a swingful of
          ladies&#8212;"I asked him whyn't he stay for dinner, and
          he said&#8212;he said he wanted to go home an' have
          luncheon wiv Joy. So I s'pose he'll stay today, long's
          you're here."
        </p>
        <p>
          In Joy's naughty mind a Great Idea sprang to birth.
          Whyn't he stay, indeed? He didn't know about Gail's
          coming to brighten his fireside, and there wasn't any
          reason why he should.
        </p>
        <p>
          "He'll stay if I can make him," she told Philip gaily.
        </p>
        <p>
          In the back of her head&#8212;she should unquestionably
          have had her hands slapped&#8212;there was a beautiful
          and complete picture of Gail being insolently alluring to
          three empty chairs and a luncheon table and four
          unoccupied walls.
        </p>
        <p>
          "See John!" screamed Angela, trying to clap her hands,
          and having to be grabbed hastily so she shouldn't fall
          out of the swing. "Johnny! Johnny! Come in!"
        </p>
        <p>
          John looked up in time to see the swing before it went
          downward again. He waved his hand as it came up, and the
          third time it rose Joy saw the car still, but no John. He
          was coming in.
        </p>
        <p>
          He appeared a moment later, striding over the lawn. The
          children dashed for him, as usual.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Johnny, Johnny!" they clamored. "She says you can stay
          to lunch! She says she will if you will."
        </p>
        <p>
          With the way made so easy for her erring feet, what could
          Joy say but "Don't you want to?"
        </p>
        <p>
          She did not insist.
        </p>
        <p>
          But John accepted on the spot with unsuspecting
          heartiness, and Philip solved the last problem by
          scampering off over the rustling leaves to telephone that
          John wouldn't be home for luncheon.
        </p>
        <p>
          So they had a very merry luncheon, though an occasional
          whiff of guilt made Joy fall silent&#8212;which was not
          noticeable, because Philip's conversation flowed on
          brightly in all the breaks, and sometimes when there
          weren't any.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Want me to take you back, Joy?" John asked when they
          were done, looking down at her quizzically, as he had a
          trick of doing. "Gail must want you by this time."
        </p>
        <p>
          "Gail!" stammered Joy. Then her courage came back, as it
          usually did when she summoned it, and she laughed.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Heavens, I am discovered!" she quoted. "Why, John, you
          don't mean to tell me you ran away too?"
        </p>
        <p>
          "I didn't run away," countered John. "I promised Philip
          yesterday that I'd stay here to luncheon with him. In
          fact, I think I promised to summon you. I stopped at the
          house to do it just now and found you here already. I
          explained matters to Gail, and she is up in Mother's
          room, having her luncheon there."
        </p>
        <p>
          He turned to the children. "Say good-by to Joy now,
          infants&#8212;I'm going to take her away with me."
        </p>
        <p>
          "You do that a great deal of the time, it seems to me,"
          observed Philip regretfully. "But of course, I suppose
          she really does belong to you."
        </p>
        <p>
          "Exactly," laughed John, lifting the little boy up to
          kiss him. "She does. Come, my property."
        </p>
        <p>
          They got into the car amicably, laughing over Philip. But
          John wasn't through with her.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Was it quite courteous, my dear," he asked gently, but
          with a certain firmness, "to leave Gail that way? It was
          only a chance that I was able to explain it. In a sense
          she was a guest in your house."
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy flamed up.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Was it quite courteous of Gail," she demanded
          passionately, "to come in and take my house away from me,
          and demand that I hand her over the
          housekeeping&#8212;no, not demand it, calmly take it?"
        </p>
        <p>
          John looked a little perplexed for the moment, which gave
          Joy time to calm down a little, and remind herself that
          men were like that.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Somehow one doesn't expect Gail to be considerate," he
          explained finally. "It&#8212;well, it isn't one of her
          qualities. I think I heard her say once that she had
          never found it necessary. But you&#8212;I expect so much
          more of you, Joy!"
        </p>
        <p>
          One would suppose that this might have been soothing.
          John seemed to consider it so. But it wasn't.
        </p>
        <p>
          "She's so charming that nobody expects anything else of
          her," Joy flashed back, "and I have to be good, because
          all people can like me for is my goodness&#8212;is that
          what you mean?"
        </p>
        <p>
          And she stood up, as the car slowed before the Hewitt
          house, and sprang out. She had seen Clarence Rutherford
          sunning himself expectantly on the steps.
        </p>
        <p>
          "There's the man who sent her over, if you approve of it
          all so highly," were her departing words to John. "I
          promise not to be inhospitable to him!"
        </p>
        <p>
          She waved her hand.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Mr. Rutherford!" she called. "Come on down and go off
          somewhere with me!"
        </p>
        <p>
          Clarence unfolded himself with more haste than usual, and
          obliged.
        </p>
        <p>
          "To the end of the world, Sorcerette, or any little place
          like that," he said sweetly. "I have no car, alas, but I
          can telephone for one."
        </p>
        <p>
          "No, don't," said Joy, whose one idea was to get away.
          "Just go into the house and bring me my cap and any wrap
          you can find."
        </p>
        <p>
          She did not dare look back to John. She felt she was
          being everything she oughtn't to, but she also felt that
          she had cause.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Here's your hat," said Clarence, coming out with it, and
          refraining from completing the quotation. "Where do you
          want to go? I have many beautiful plans to offer you,
          principally about your being leading lady in my comic
          opera. You are going to have to get an extension of
          parole from the dear ones at home."
        </p>
        <p>
          "Oh, do you really think I can act in it?" asked Joy
          happily as they went down the leafy road together. She
          gave a little frisk as she spoke.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Of course you can," said he. "As a matter of fact,
          that's my principal reason for getting it up. I have a
          book that contains all the Gilbert librettos in my most
          bulging pocket. You and I will wander out into the
          wonderful autumn woods, and sit down on a soft, pleasant
          log, and pick out the opera, and the cast, and be happy
          generally. Only I won't play unless, as I explained last
          night, you are a leading lady with a real star part. As
          I'm a wonderful stage manager I feel strongly that it
          will be thus."
        </p>
        <p>
          "Thank you," said Joy amiably but absently. Something
          appalling had just occurred to her.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Good gracious," she told him, "it's a special occasion,
          and the cook and the waitress are both going off to
          funerals or something, and Gail is going to have to get
          that whole dinner single-handed!"
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p><a name="ch12"><!--Marker--></a>
        <h2>
          CHAPTER TWELVE
        </h2>
        <h3>
          DINNER FOR FIVE
        </h3>
        <p>
          Clarence smiled most agreeably.
        </p>
        <p>
          "You should try to be more of an optimist, dear Joy," he
          reproved. "Try to live up to your name."
        </p>
        <p>
          "I got it out of Blake," said Joy, "or they did&#8212;and
          I never did see why you should live up to a name your
          grandfather pinned on you out of a poetry book."
        </p>
        <p>
          "Pardon this seeming curiosity," hinted Clarence, "but
          didn't you ever have any parents, not even to the extent
          of their having a chance to name you?"
        </p>
        <p>
          "They died before I was born," Joy explained. "At least,
          as much as they could. My father quite did and my mother
          died before I was a week old. So Grandfather had it all
          to do, as far as naming went. You know that horrid
          poem&#8212;
        </p>
        <p>
          <br>
          &nbsp;&nbsp; <i>"I have no name&#8212;<br>
          &nbsp;&nbsp; I am but three days old:"</i>
        </p>
        <p>
          "And it's called Infant Joy, and so was I."
        </p>
        <p>
          "They seem to have begun wrecking your taste for
          literature early," observed Clarence.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Oh&#8212;literature!" said Joy wearily.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Your tone hints that we didn't come off to discuss the
          poets. You are quite right, Sorcerette. When two charming
          young persons like ourselves are alone together on a
          wonderful fall afternoon they should discuss only each
          other. And you must admit that my references to
          literature were only incidental to yourself."
        </p>
        <p>
          "Well, anyway," stated Joy, pausing as they strolled, and
          beginning to braid into a garland a handful of wild
          asters she had gathered, "anyway, I ought to go back to
          the house and help Gail get dinner. John likes things
          just so."
        </p>
        <p>
          "Heavens, how marital!" sighed Clarence, wincing. Then
          suddenly he seemed more in earnest than Joy had ever
          known him. "Can't you ever talk or think of anything but
          the admirable John? How on earth did he get you so
          thoroughly broken in?"
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy's cheeks flamed.
        </p>
        <p>
          "He didn't 'break me in,'" she defended. "But I think I
          ought to see to it that things are all right. You see,
          when your cousin came and offered to take over the
          housekeeping&#8212;if she wasn't your cousin, I might say
          she got it away from me&#8212;she thought she was helping
          herself to a 'nice, clane, aisy job,' as the Irishman
          said about being a bishop. It really isn't fair to let
          her in for work she didn't expect."
        </p>
        <p>
          The look Clarence bent on her this time held genuine
          admiration.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I think it is exceedingly fair," was all he said.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Really?" she asked. She certainly did not want to go
          back to the house, and, noble as Clarence might think
          her, she didn't feel a bit like taking orders from Gail.
        </p>
        <p>
          "She has made her bed&#8212;or it may even be, her beds,"
          said Clarence. "Now why don't you let her lie in it, or
          them?"
        </p>
        <p>
          "Well, I don't want to go home," said Joy a little sadly.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Let us be optimists, as I suggested some yards back,"
          said Clarence cheerfully. "Let us think of the wonderful
          effect it will all have on Gail's moral nature. By the
          time she has produced the eight-course dinner which I
          gather the worthy Dr. Hewitt requires to keep him the
          good citizen he is, she will be ennobled to a terrible
          degree. You have heard of the ennobling influence of
          toil, dear child?"
        </p>
        <p>
          "I have, but I never believed in it," said Joy. "It makes
          you cross, especially peeling potatoes, and it's bad for
          your hands. And judging by the number of maids who steal,
          it doesn't work at all."
        </p>
        <p>
          "I suppose," Clarence resigned himself, "that if
          Melisande were still spared to us in the flesh, she
          really would have talked this way, except that she would
          have used a few more dots. But one is an idealist. One is
          jarred. If you could recite, in your soft, clear-cut
          voice that is so admirably adapted for poetry, a few
          stanzas of something heartbreaking&#8212;&#8212;"
          voluntarily.
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy, not unnaturally, lost patience.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I have spent my whole life, or a lot more of it than I
          want to, reciting heartbreaking poetry," she told him.
          "If you want it, go buy a phonograph record. And if you
          want me out here in the woods with you, stop talking
          about it!"
        </p>
        <p>
          She really shouldn't have been so cross. Clarence was
          supposed to be very clever when he talked. But just then
          she was only half listening to him, and there came a
          sudden vision of the night before&#8212;the cozy room,
          and the wood fire, and John across from her, smiling
          gravely at her, and talking in a way that didn't make her
          feel, as Clarence's way did, that he was laughing at her
          underneath, when he thought she couldn't see.
        </p>
        <p>
          John had told her once that his ideal girl wore something
          white or blue, and had her hair parted, and was connected
          in his mind some way with a wood fire. And he had talked
          and acted as if she was that girl. She'd had on the
          little blue dress that she'd bought, and made look modern
          with a fichu of Mrs. Hewitt's....
        </p>
        <p>
          Clarence's voice interrupted her thoughts, rather
          plaintively.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Dear Joy! I <i>will</i> buy a phonograph record! I will
          buy a whole album of them. I will purchase a copy of the
          Last Ravings of John McCullough, and have it rave to me
          the last thing every night, as a penance, if you will
          only stop looking off into space, and give at least a
          fair imitation of knowing that I exist."
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy's heart misgave her. She really wasn't being very
          polite.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Of course you exist," she said penitently. "And you are
          very nice and polite, in your way, and you must make
          allowance for my not being clever. I keep telling you
          that all the time."
        </p>
        <p>
          "I am delighted that you are not, as you call it,
          clever," said Clarence with undoubted sincerity. "You
          lack verbal dexterity of a certain kind, because you have
          never associated freely with people you could be
          disrespectful to. But you are quite a new kind of girl,
          or else a survival, and I adore you for it. I never
          thought I was going to adore any one so much. Why, I even
          think it is humorous when you sit on me, and that, my
          dear, is a very bad symptom. In short, I am very much in
          love with you."
        </p>
        <p>
          Clarence had a habit of talking that way, and Joy didn't
          pay much attention to it. In a phrase of his own, it was
          like kissing over the telephone&#8212;it didn't get you
          anywhere, but it had a cunning sound. It has a warming
          feeling to think that any one is in love with you, even
          if you know they aren't. She said as much.
        </p>
        <p>
          But Clarence became what was, for him, sulky. Clarence
          had one curious thing about him: he never showed his
          temper at all, but you couldn't be with him ten minutes
          without being morally certain that he had a very bad and
          sullen one, which he merely kept concealed for reasons of
          his own. Whereas John Hewitt's temper, which
          undisguisedly was in existence, wasn't a thing you ever
          thought of excepting rather amusedly and affectionately.
          It was such a little-boy thing in comparison with the
          grown-up, responsible rest of him! It would undoubtedly
          appear some time this afternoon or evening. At the
          thought of it Joy felt her usual affectionate amusement.
          When it was over he would be very sorry.
        </p>
        <p>
          "You haven't told me anything about the comic opera yet,"
          she hinted to Clarence, who had been quite silent for the
          last while. "Don't you want to?"
        </p>
        <p>
          "I do!" said Clarence, coming out of his muse and turning
          into his ordinary self. "We will sit down on the next
          stump or stone we see, and go into the matter
          thoroughly."
        </p>
        <p>
          It was a large flat stone, with a tree for Joy to lean
          against. They sat down on it, and Clarence pulled the
          libretto book out of his pocket, and they went to work.
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy knew the Gilbert and Sullivan operas from a copy of
          the words that had always been around the house. So there
          was no delay while she read the book through, as Clarence
          seemed to have expected.
        </p>
        <p>
          "To my mind it lies between 'Patience' and 'Iolanthe,'"
          said Clarence. "The 'Mikado' has been done to death, and
          so has 'Trial by Jury.' And 'Princess Ida' is too full of
          blank verse, and the men's solos are too hard."
        </p>
        <p>
          So far as Joy was concerned nothing had been done to
          death. She would quite willingly have been the humblest
          chorus-girl in "Pinafore," if Clarence had willed to have
          that much-done classic. But he seemed determined to have
          her play a large part in whatever it was, and to have
          whatever it was <i>Iolanthe</i>. He wanted to be
          <i>Strephon</i>, it seemed; in fact, he had been. And he
          wanted Joy for the <i>Phyllis</i> or <i>Iolanthe</i>.
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy had a faint feeling that Phyllis Harrington ought to
          have the part with her own name, but Clarence explained
          that names had nothing whatever to do with it unless you
          were a movie star, when you used your first name in order
          to make the public more interested in your personality.
        </p>
        <p>
          "We will give Gail the part you don't want," he told her,
          "as a punishment for not letting you cook your
          eight-course dinner tonight. By the way, we must time
          ourselves to get back and eat it. I wonder whether Gail
          can cook. On second thoughts, why not stay out till it's
          over?"
        </p>
        <p>
          "The play!" said Joy imperatively.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Well," he said, yielding, "would you rather be a fairy
          princess or a shepherdess from Arcady? I'd prefer to have
          you the shepherdess, for personal reasons. I wish to be
          the shepherd."
        </p>
        <p>
          "Whatever you say," said Joy absently. "It's getting
          colder. Hadn't we better walk a little?"
        </p>
        <p>
          "Very well," said Clarence. "We can argue as we walk."
        </p>
        <p>
          The problem of making sixteen young women willing to be a
          chorus and of finding sixteen or twenty young men to be
          anything, took them quite a while to discuss. They walked
          on as they talked, until it began to get darker.
        </p>
        <p>
          "By the way, have you any idea where we are?" inquired
          Clarence, stopping short to look about him. "New England
          woods are not my native habitat."
        </p>
        <p>
          "Nor mine," said Joy, startled. "I think we ought to go
          back to the high road."
        </p>
        <p>
          "If there's any left to go back to," suggested Clarence.
          "We've been on one way-path after another so long that I
          don't think I could find it again."
        </p>
        <p>
          They turned around, and continued to follow way-paths
          back. Clarence had no pocket compass, such as people who
          get lost ought to possess. And it was getting
          relentlessly darker and darker. Joy had never been lost
          before, and she was surprised to find the feeling of
          panic that possessed her when she grasped the fact that
          neither of them knew where they were. Finally they gained
          a clear space where there was a tolerably
          traveled-looking road.
        </p>
        <p>
          "If we wait here somebody may come along," said Clarence.
          "Jove, I'm hungry!"
        </p>
        <p>
          "So am I," said Joy.
        </p>
        <p>
          But there wasn't anything to do about <i>that</i>.
          Finally Joy remembered that she had some chocolate in her
          little handbag, and they divided it and ate it. After
          that life was a little brighter.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Do you suppose we'll have to stay here all night?"
          demanded Joy. "We'll freeze to death if we do."
        </p>
        <p>
          "No, I don't," said Clarence. "But, Joy dear, if we
          do&#8212;&#8212;"
        </p>
        <p>
          The mockery was all out of his voice.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Oh, don't talk about it!" she exclaimed. "Surely
          somebody will come get us&#8212;or couldn't we go up this
          road till we find a farmhouse?"
        </p>
        <p>
          "If you like," said Clarence.
        </p>
        <p>
          They rose and walked on for a while.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Oh, listen!" Joy whispered. "I hear something!"
        </p>
        <p>
          "It's a car," said Clarence hopefully.
        </p>
        <p>
          And it was. It was John's car, with John in it, and the
          temper Joy had been thinking of tenderly was with him. He
          was evidently thoroughly angry, for he scarcely spoke,
          even when he found them.
        </p>
        <p>
          "See here, Hewitt," Clarence protested. "You aren't doing
          the thing at all properly. You should say, 'My own! At
          last I have found you!' instead of backing up the car
          with a short sentence like that."
        </p>
        <p>
          What John had said, as a matter of fact, was, "Get in the
          car. It's late."
        </p>
        <p>
          He did come to a little at Clarence's flippant reminder,
          and smiled reluctantly.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Well, you see, it was self-evident. I <i>had</i> found
          you both. You oughtn't to have walked so far if you
          didn't know where you were going."
        </p>
        <p>
          "It is also self-evident that it is late," said Clarence
          stiffly, and, it must be confessed, a little sulkily.
          "Nevertheless, we're having a very pleasant time.... Is
          dinner over?"
        </p>
        <p>
          John, for no apparent reason, smiled frankly at this.
          "Not in the least," he said. "They are waiting dinner
          till the prodigals' return. My mother has had hers sent
          up to her, but Gail and your friend Tiddy are kindly
          keeping the rest of it hot."
        </p>
        <p>
          It is a quicker journey in a car than when you stroll
          leisurely along, discussing light opera and your
          disposition. They were surprised to find how near,
          comparatively, they were, to the village.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Joy, do you suppose I am invited to dinner?" asked
          Clarence in a stage whisper. "If it is not thus I shall
          probably starve by the roadside, because Gail sent her
          mother to a bridge-and-high-tea before she went, and the
          maids there had no orders about food. That's why I was
          prowling about the hospitable Hewitt mansion."
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy couldn't help smiling. "I think you must be," she
          said.
        </p>
        <p>
          But she didn't understand John's allusion to Tiddy. He
          was abjectly devoted to Gail, but it did seem that
          devotion had its limits, when it came to following her to
          somebody else's house.
        </p>
        <p>
          "What is Tiddy doing in these parts?" Clarence asked for
          her, as people so often do ask your questions for you if
          you only give them time. "Dinner-party, is it?"
        </p>
        <p>
          "Tiddy," said John dryly, "is making himself useful."
        </p>
        <p>
          "That is nothing at all new in Tiddy's life," said Gail's
          cousin. "People who dwell about Gail do. Am I to
          understand that he is chief cook and bottle-washer?"
        </p>
        <p>
          "You are," said John.
        </p>
        <p>
          They got out and went into the house, Joy feeling as
          mussy as only a girl can who has been away from home all
          day. She followed the curious-minded Clarence into the
          kitchen.
        </p>
        <p>
          The sight that met their eyes was an interesting one. The
          kitchen was a pleasant sight to any one from outside,
          being warmed and lighted. It was further decorated by
          Gail, in a very low and clinging black frock trimmed with
          poppies, which it occurred to Joy must have been in the
          grip. She was sitting in absolute idleness in a kitchen
          chair, with her feet on a footstool, and Tiddy, swathed
          in an apron with pink checks, was engaged at the kitchen
          range.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Good work, old boy!" Clarence called out to him. "What
          have you got?"
        </p>
        <p>
          Tiddy turned a scarlet face toward him, and waved one
          hand, with a spoon in it.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Gail said there had to be a good dinner," he said
          worriedly, "but I don't know how to make many things.
          This is soup.... It doesn't look right to me, somehow.
          Come here, Clarence, and give it a once over."
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy, leaning against the lintel with John a little behind
          her as usual, couldn't help but admire Gail. She knew
          perfectly well that it would never have occurred to her
          in Gail's place to sit placidly in a chair while a lad
          who ought to have been at home studying-Tiddy was
          cramming to catch up with his class at
          college&#8212;wrestled with the stove. But, after all,
          that was the sort of thing she had always read of sirens
          doing. And even if the victim was only a little college
          boy, of what Clarence called frying size, it was a sight
          to make one wishful. Also apprehensive&#8212;mightn't
          Gail set John peeling potatoes next? That sight would be
          an annoying one from various angles.
        </p>
        <p>
          John showed no signs of being about to yield, at least at
          the moment. He joined Clarence in teasing Tiddy, who took
          it very sweetly, but he finally came forward and showed
          the lad how to manage the drafts.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Call us when you're ready, Cookie," said Clarence
          amiably, and sauntered out. John followed him.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Can't I help?" asked Joy, staying conscientiously
          behind. She still felt that it was her responsibility.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Not a bit," said Gail. "We're getting along wonderfully.
          You'd better go up and get straightened out,
          though&#8212;you look blown to bits. Oh, and send John
          back as you go through, Tiddy can't do the drafts right."
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy went out obediently.
        </p>
        <p>
          "John, I am to send you back as I go through. Tiddy can't
          do the drafts right," she repeated in a colorless voice
          that had anger underneath it, and walking on as she
          spoke.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Drafts&#8212;nonsense&#8212;Gail's lonesome," Clarence
          answered cheerfully, from the couch where he had thrown
          himself.
        </p>
        <p>
          "All right," said John, who was the soul of politeness,
          but an annoyingly dense person compared to Clarence, it
          seemed to Joy. He went out. Joy ran upstairs as fast as
          she could go. She arrived at the top, breathless and
          still angry, and remembered that she ought to go in and
          see Mrs. Hewitt. But the lights were low, generally a
          sign that the lady was asleep, so she went on to her own
          room.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Blown to bits!" she said to herself bitterly, stopping
          opposite her confidant, the mirror. "And <i>she</i>
          sitting on a chair looking like Marie Antoinette being
          taken to execution in a kitchen chair!"
        </p>
        <p>
          It was a breathless and tautological remark, but it
          relieved her feelings. "I oughtn't to feel that way," she
          reminded herself. "Because after all, Gail <i>was</i>
          here first!"
        </p>
        <p>
          This didn't seem to make much difference in the feelings.
          And it was unquestionable that she was blown about, and
          very young and owned no black dress with poppies, nor yet
          any college boy who would cook for her at a wave of the
          hand.
        </p>
        <p>
          She pawed her wardrobe through furiously. Joy was always
          very dependent for encouragement on the clothes she wore.
          The proper gown could make her feel the way it looked,
          always. They almost had moods sewed into them around the
          bottom, she thought sometimes.
        </p>
        <p>
          The way she had felt last time she wore the amber satin
          with the poem to it, that one she had hated so
          furiously&#8212;could she feel that way again if she put
          on the dress? She'd felt young&#8212;oh, yes, but as if
          youth were a perfectly splendid thing to have. And very
          alive, and superior, and rebellious. And ready to have a
          lover, and to treat him, if necessary, like a
          dog&#8212;like a whole kennel of dogs!
        </p>
        <p>
          So she put it on. She made herself exactly the little
          princess of Grandfather's reception days, trailing
          chiffon panels, swinging jewel-filleted braids and all,
          and swept downstairs with her head high.
        </p>
        <p>
          Tiddy had by this time managed to get the dinner on the
          table, and the other two men, out of sheer pity, were
          helping him. In fact, having enthroned Gail at the table,
          they were making a frolic of the whole thing.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Here, catch the steak, Rutherford," John was saying
          cheerfully. And Clarence, with carving-knife and fork
          outheld, was making as neat a catch as possible.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Here, Tiddy, don't try to stagger in along under those
          biscuits. You made 'em. That kind takes two strong
          men&#8212;I know, I've eaten your biscuits before."
        </p>
        <p>
          "I made these the regular way, with yeast," said Tiddy in
          an injured voice. "<i>I</i> couldn't help it if they
          didn't rise in the oven. Go rag the cookbook."
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy could stand it no longer. Forgetting her real state,
          she rushed out on them, where they wrestled with the
          dinner and Tiddy. They were playing handball with the
          biscuits by this time.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Oh, <i>Tiddy!</i> You didn't put <i>yeast</i> in those
          biscuits!" she reproached him. "Why, you poor unfortunate
          boy, yeast has to rise over night, or an afternoon
          anyhow! They're no use!"
        </p>
        <p>
          They all three stopped simultaneously at the vision which
          she had quite honestly forgotten she presented. Tiddy
          listened humbly, and Clarence made a low bow.
        </p>
        <p>
          "The Queen came in the kitchen, speaking bread and
          honey," he quoted appositely, while John looked both
          pleased and proud.
        </p>
        <p>
          "There, I told you so," he said with triumph. "I said you
          were in wrong with those biscuits. Joy always knows."
        </p>
        <p>
          "'It was the very best butter,'" quoted Tiddy (who was
          not without a sense of humor), from "Alice."
        </p>
        <p>
          "But what can we do?" asked John, who was concentrated on
          the situation. "The steak's all right&#8212;any idiot can
          broil steak, as Tiddy has proved&#8212;" he had to stop
          short to dodge a biscuit&#8212;"and the soup came out of
          a can, so maybe that'll do. But there isn't a bit of
          bread, and we simply have to have it. At least I suppose
          so."
        </p>
        <p>
          "Get me an apron, please," Joy asked of the surroundings,
          and two aprons were offered her excitedly by three
          willing hands. She pinned both on, as a precaution
          against ruining the amber satin, though she didn't much
          mind if it had been ruined, and began by investigating
          the soup. It was the best canned tomato bisque, but its
          cook had not known or read that it should be watered, or
          milked, and it was so thick it was almost stiff. She sent
          Clarence for milk out of the refrigerator, and treated it
          properly. Then she looked at the biscuits, such as had
          escaped destruction. They were indeed hopeless.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I can make biscuits in a minute, but it will take a
          half-hour to bake them in this range," she told them,
          where they stood, anxiously awaiting her verdict. "If you
          didn't mind having them baked on a griddle&#8212;&#8212;"
        </p>
        <p>
          "Like the ones the fellow does in the window at Childs'!
          Fine!" responded Tiddy enthusiastically. "I'll get the
          griddle. I've learned where everything grows."
        </p>
        <p>
          He produced it accordingly, and watched Joy, as did the
          others, entranced, while she mixed and cut out biscuits,
          and baked them in the griddle scone-fashion.
        </p>
        <p>
          They made it a triumphal procession after that, with the
          biscuits borne high by Tiddy before Joy, who came in
          carrying the steak, followed by Clarence and John with a
          dish of canned vegetables apiece. It was far from being
          the dinner Joy had planned, but the biscuits were greatly
          admired, and every one was happy. That is, Joy was, and
          apparently the men were. Joy was so pleased to think that
          she had been able to straighten out things, and get them
          a good dinner, that she forgot to think about Gail at
          all. She sat in the tall armchair at the head of the
          table where John had placed her, and poured coffee in big
          cups, to be taken with the dinner, with flushed cheeks
          and a gay heart.
        </p>
        <p>
          "But what I want to know is," demanded Clarence, "why
          nobody's ever seen that frock before."
        </p>
        <p>
          "I have," John answered from the foot. "Joy had that on
          the very first time I saw her, amber beads and crown and
          all. I never thought then I'd see her making my biscuits
          in it."
        </p>
        <p>
          "It's an allegory," said Clarence. "Man captures the
          beautiful princess of his dream, and sets her to drudging
          in his kitchen. <i>I</i> think there is something sad but
          sweet, as Shaw would say, about it."
        </p>
        <p>
          "But I wanted to make the biscuits!" cried Joy before she
          thought. "If I hadn't there wouldn't have been any for
          dinner&#8212;and you <i>had</i> to have dinner."
        </p>
        <p>
          "They didn't at all," said Gail. "You spoil men. If you
          always say, 'But he has to have it!' and then go tearing
          around getting it for him, why&#8212;&#8212;"
        </p>
        <p>
          She shrugged her shoulders.
        </p>
        <p>
          "There are excellent biscuits a half-mile away, at the
          baker's in the village, and a motor-car outside."
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy laughed blithely.
        </p>
        <p>
          "But you see, I'm not used to a motor-car. I'm not
          motor-people at all.... Well, I suppose when you live
          with a poet you get in the habit of feeling you must do
          what people want of you. Grandfather was so great, you
          see, we felt it was&#8212;well, only polite. At least
          Grandmother brought me up that way."
        </p>
        <p>
          "I&#8212;I say! Was your grandfather <i>the</i> Alton
          Havenith!" exclaimed Tiddy, opening his eyes widely. "The
          one in all the readers and cram-books and anthologies?"
        </p>
        <p>
          "Is." corrected Joy. "He's quite alive. Yes, that's
          Grandfather&#8212;and this is one of my dresses for his
          receptions," she added as an afterthought.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Good <i>gracious!</i>" breathed Tiddy reverently. They
          were at the canned peaches and pound-cake by this time.
          "I&#8212;I suppose you couldn't say any of his things?"
          he ended diffidently. He was evidently a worshiper.
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy felt quite herself by now, the old self-possessed Joy
          of the salon and recitations.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Well, not over the dessert," she said, laughing. "But as
          soon as dinner is over, if you want me to. There's one I
          say to a harp. There's a harp here."
        </p>
        <p>
          "Can you play a harp, too?" demanded Clarence, "as well
          as make biscuits? See here, Tiddy, you forget your
          position in life. You're a cook. Get thee to the kitchen,
          while Joy entertains us, who are the real quality folks."
        </p>
        <p>
          "Nonsense," smiled John. "We'll leave things as they
          are&#8212;can't we, Joy?"
        </p>
        <p>
          He led the way into the parlor and uncovered the harp for
          her. No one would have guessed by his demeanor that this
          was the first sign he had had of Joy's
          accomplishment&#8212;he was as matter-of-fact as possible
          about it. Only once he smiled across at her secretly, as
          if they had something private between them, as she asked
          him which thing he thought she had better say to begin
          with, and named one immediately.
        </p>
        <p>
          She flung back the chiffon that trailed down one slim,
          round arm, and, after a little preliminary tuning, began
          to play. It was "To Myrtilla at Seventeen" that John had
          suggested, and harp-music went well with it. Then she
          went on to more. She had never thought that Grandfather
          would help her this way!
        </p>
        <p>
          They kept her at the harp most of the evening. From
          Grandfather's poems she slid to some of Grandmother's old
          songs, plaintive old things of Civil War days. She was
          earnestly trying to make her guests and John's have as
          good a time as lay in her power, and she never thought
          about Gail, quiet and quite out of the center of the
          stage, at all.
        </p>
        <p>
          Tiddy, rapt and worshipful, clung close to her till the
          evening was over.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I say," he told her when the others were going,
          "you&#8212;do you know, you're wonderful! I&#8212;do you
          mind if I come over tomorrow? There's a lot of things I'd
          like to ask you about Alton Havenith. I&#8212;could I?"
        </p>
        <p>
          "Why, of course," said Joy, with her usual eager desire
          to do anything nice she could for people.
        </p>
        <p>
          He thanked her fervently, and went with obvious
          reluctance. Gail was a little silent, even for her, who
          only talked when she chose. And at last Joy and John were
          alone. She felt a little shy of him.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I must go clear up," she said presently, as he did not
          speak, moving toward the dining-room.
        </p>
        <p>
          "You must not," he told her, with the affectionate note
          in his voice she loved to hear. "I want to stay here and
          appreciate my princess a little, and I can't do it well
          when she's away&#8212;or I don't want to. Sit down, Joy.
          I scarcely ever see anything of you any more.... Dear
          child, why on earth did you let Gail rampage all over the
          house this way? You could have had a maid in from the
          village."
        </p>
        <p>
          "But she said she was going to&#8212;and I thought you
          knew!" cried Joy, her heart leaping up.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Oh, you mean she took possession?" he said. "I see. That
          is like Gail. Well&#8212;don't let her, next time, my
          dear."
        </p>
        <p>
          "I'd much, much rather not!" said Joy enthusiastically,
          "but she said she'd made it all right with your mother,
          and&#8212;&#8212;"
        </p>
        <p>
          "Oh, in that case," said John, "all right." Then he
          dismissed the subject, looking into the fire. "I find out
          some new thing about you every day, kiddie," he said.
          "I'm afraid I must seem like a rather quiet and
          unaccomplished person to you,&#8212;compared to other
          men."
        </p>
        <p>
          "You mean because I ran off with Clarence," said Joy with
          remorseful directness, and her usual child-likeness. "I
          <i>was</i> cross because you liked Gail."
        </p>
        <p>
          He laughed. "And <i>I</i> was cross because you liked
          Clarence. Shall we both reform a bit, little girl?"
        </p>
        <p>
          "Oh, yes!" replied Joy radiantly. "Only I haven't much to
          reform about," she added thoughtfully. "Except he's kind
          to me, and he understands things sometimes you don't...."
        </p>
        <p>
          John sighed a little. "I see. Yes, he's that sort. Well,
          try to make me understand, dear, won't you? ... I want
          to."
        </p>
        <p>
          She slipped her hand impulsively in his as she did
          sometimes.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Then that's all right," he said contentedly.
        </p>
        <p>
          But the most all right thing, to Joy's unregenerate
          heart, was next morning, when she went up to pay her
          usual morning visit to Mrs. Hewitt.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Joy, will you tell me," demanded the lady, "what you
          meant by telling Gail you wanted her to do the
          housekeeping?"
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p><a name="ch13"><!--Marker--></a>
        <h2>
          CHAPTER THIRTEEN
        </h2>
        <h3>
          THE SERIOUS BUSINESS OF "IOLANTHE"
        </h3>
        <p>
          There was no use having it out with Gail. Joy was not one
          of those nerve-shaking people who insist on having things
          out, anyhow. She was perfectly content with things as
          they were.
        </p>
        <p>
          The weather settled down to be legitimate October
          weather, a little early: crisply lovely outdoors, and of
          the temperature to be an excuse for fires indoors at
          night. Tiddy transferred his allegiance, still a little
          shyly, to Joy. The change was good for him, because they
          were, after all, very much of an age. They got to be
          excellent friends. Also Joy kept him at his studies in a
          fashion that was, for her, quite severe: he had asked her
          if she wouldn't, and she did. She went off for tramps
          with him when John was otherwise employed, which seemed
          to please John, and prevented her from having Clarence
          too much underfoot.
        </p>
        <p>
          Gail referred to Tiddy's desertion with her usual note of
          indolent amusement&#8212;it did not occur to Joy till
          years later that Gail might occasionally pretend a
          superiority to such things as annoy other girls&#8212;and
          summoned another man from the city for week-ends. Tiddy
          was indigenous to the soil. This, as Clarence, with
          <i>his</i> amiable superiority, said, was so much to the
          good, for when you come to amateur theatricals every man
          is a man. Clarence was working with an industry nobody
          would ever have suspected in him, over "Iolanthe."
        </p>
        <p>
          It was easy enough to collect the principals. With a
          certain amount of nobility of character, Clarence
          assigned himself the part of <i>Lord Chancellor</i>,
          remarking that he could make a fool of himself rather
          better than most men he knew. Incidentally he played
          opposite to Joy, who refused flatly to take the leading
          part of <i>Phyllis</i>, and was therefore cast for
          <i>Iolanthe</i>. They found a suitable and sufficiently
          stalwart <i>Fairy Queen</i> in the neighborhood, and made
          Gail's weekend man <i>Private Willis</i>, because two
          rehearsals a week were enough for that part, and he was
          the tallest man, nearly, that any one had ever seen. He
          was six feet three and a half, which is about two and a
          half inches more than is necessary for beauty and
          suitability, to quote Clarence again; but quite what they
          wanted just here.
        </p>
        <p>
          "But where on earth to get a chorus!" wailed Clarence,
          after a rehearsal in the big Hewitt parlor. They were
          keeping it more or less a family affair. The Harringtons
          had returned, bringing the De Guenthers with them in
          triumph. Mrs. De Guenther was a dear little old lady who
          took a deep interest in the whole scheme, and was of
          great use in the costuming. Mr. De Guenther, scholarly,
          soft-voiced, and courteously precise, was also allowed to
          be present at rehearsals; not because of the costuming,
          but because he remembered performances at the Savoy when
          he was a young man in London, and could coach them in the
          business.
        </p>
        <p>
          "With a whole village full of people, I should think you
          could!" said Gail. "The trouble with you is, Clarry,
          you're lazy." She leaned back herself in a long chair as
          she said it, looking the personification of indolence.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Of course I could!" he said scornfully. "My good girl,
          have you seen the worthy New Englanders in this village?
          There are some of the most beautiful characters,
          hereabouts, I was told when I went seeking for
          chorus-ladies, that ever existed. But they are far from
          being worn on the outside."
        </p>
        <p>
          "Laura Ward is coming down over that week, to stay with
          me," Gail offered.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Yes, and Laura Ward has played <i>Celia</i>, and is
          going to have to do it again," stated Clarence. "We can't
          waste a good dancer like that on the chorus."
        </p>
        <p>
          John, who was <i>Lord Mountararat</i>, one of
          <i>Phyllis'</i> two suitors from the House of Lords, was
          looking out of the window absently, humming under his
          breath one of his songs:
        </p>
        <p>
          <br>
          &nbsp;&nbsp; <i>"It seems that she's a fairy<br>
          &nbsp;&nbsp; From Andersen's lib</i>rary<br>
          &nbsp;&nbsp; <i>And we took her for<br>
          &nbsp;&nbsp; The proprietor<br>
          &nbsp;&nbsp; Of a Ladies' Semi</i>nary!"
        </p>
        <p>
          One of the unaccountable silences which sometimes fall
          made every absently-sung word quite audible. As he ended
          Clarence sprang at him in what would have been a wild
          embrace if he had not ducked in time.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Here, don't let your troubles drive you crazy,
          Rutherford," John protested, holding him off with a
          strong hand.
        </p>
        <p>
          "They haven't!" proclaimed Clarence. "But 'them beautiful
          words!' See here, you dwellers in this happy vale, isn't
          there a girls' school somewhere adjacent? Why don't we
          bribe the teachers by making it a benefit for whatever
          they want&#8212;a stained glass window to their founder,
          or a new laboratory or something&#8212;and lift those
          girls bodily, as a chorus?"
        </p>
        <p>
          They had been seeking painfully for some worthy object to
          give the opera for, and so far hadn't been able to find a
          thing. So his project was greeted joyfully.
        </p>
        <p>
          "John, as usual, will have to go ask," suggested Allan.
          "Johnny, old boy, what <i>would</i> we do without your
          reputation? You physish at that school, and I hear they
          kiss your very shadow."
        </p>
        <p>
          "It's probably all they get a chance at," Gail kindly
          helped John out.
        </p>
        <p>
          John, who was wildly adored, as a matter of fact, by most
          of the fifteen-year-olds of the school, said "Nonsense!"
          sternly.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Oh, do!" begged Tiddy. Tiddy was <i>Strephon</i>, the
          leading juvenile, "a fairy down to his waist," and was
          passionately anxious to have the whole thing go through.
          "If you will <i>I'll</i> go and see what I can yank out
          of my old prep school. There ought to be enough boys with
          changed voices and long legs&#8212;&#8212;"
        </p>
        <p>
          "Harold Gray, you are inspired!" said Gail, for once
          shaken out of her indolence. <i>She</i> had taken unto
          herself the part of <i>Phyllis</i> and was also anxious
          for the success of "Iolanthe." "And I myself will go with
          you. I'll go work my rabbit's foot on the masters.
          There's one over there who has already known my fatal
          charm."
        </p>
        <p>
          "You mean the rabbit's foot, or&#8212;&#8212;"
        </p>
        <p>
          "I mean that one of the masters is in love with me. The
          classical master. We'll work him," stated Gail brutally.
        </p>
        <p>
          "If you can make him sell you sixteen boys into slavery
          your fatal charm has been some use for once," said
          Clarence, unruffled.
        </p>
        <p>
          Phyllis and John, who were the most serious-minded of the
          roomful, saw breakers ahead, but they said nothing.
        </p>
        <p>
          "My dear, I <i>don't</i> think the way Miss Maddox talks
          is nice," whispered Mrs. De Guenther, who had taken to
          Joy as all old ladies did.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Don't worry, dear," murmured Phyllis from the other side
          of her. "Other people don't, either. But nobody takes her
          seriously."
        </p>
        <p>
          It was a light in Joy's mind on Gail. Nobody took her
          seriously. She was just a reckless, erratic creature who
          said and did as she pleased, and paid the penalty. Joy
          never felt so in awe of Gail again.
        </p>
        <p>
          "It is a very modern school," said Phyllis to the company
          in her sweet, carrying voice. "The teachers are quite in
          favor of esthetic dancing, I know, and I am sure if you
          had two or three of the teachers in it, too, to look
          after the girls, there would be no difficulty. I will go
          and ask, if you like. We need a <i>Leila</i> and
          <i>Fleta</i>."
        </p>
        <p>
          "Oh, say, Mrs. Harrington, I thought you were going to be
          one of those, at least!" protested Tiddy, to whom it
          seemed a shame that Phyllis' golden loveliness should be
          wasted. Allan was <i>Lord Tolloller</i>, the other
          suitor, but Phyllis preferred, she said, to be generally
          useful. She was practically understudy to every one in
          the place, having a quick memory and a good ear, and
          spent her time, besides, hearing parts. Her real reason
          for not wanting to play was that she was afraid the De
          Guenthers would be left too much to themselves if she was
          tied up to rehearsals. Clarence worked every one
          mercilessly.
        </p>
        <p>
          She shook her head good-naturedly.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I shall probably have to take the leading man's part on
          the night," she told him. "Oh, I forgot it was you,
          Tiddy&#8212;I beg your pardon. Well, Clarence's, then.
          And until that awful moment, let me be happy in
          obscurity!"
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy, who had <i>Iolanthe's</i> long, hard part to learn,
          and was delighted with the idea, fixed her eyes on the
          opposite wall and tried to remember what she had to say
          first. She was staying on by special permission, for the
          opera. Mrs. Hewitt herself had written Grandmother.
          Grandfather, very much pleased at the idea that Joy had
          inherited another form of his own talent, had said she
          could stay the full week of the performance. As they
          planned to give it on a Tuesday night, this was almost a
          week to the good.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Then it's settled that Mrs. Harrington and Gail, with as
          many more as are needed, go chorus-hunting tomorrow,"
          said Clarence with finality. "Now we'll start that 'When
          darkly looms the day' duet. Tiddy, Joy! Look interested,
          please. Bang the piano, if you don't mind, Mrs.
          Harrington. Now!"
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy and Tiddy accordingly burst into song, assisted by
          Allan and John. Mrs. Hewitt, who had to be very stealthy
          about coming in, because she had been put out several
          times for talking in the middle of some exciting moment,
          slid into a chair beside the De Guenthers, and behaved
          nobly. She was quite able to be around now, and Joy was
          beginning to feel that she ought to accede to Phyllis'
          requests to go back and stay with them a while. The
          children demanded her daily.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I do hope the gate receipts will be more than the
          expenses," Clarence said hopefully in a resting-space.
          "The last time I got up anything like this we cleared
          just two dollars. We'd formally dedicated it to a Home
          for the Aged, in the blessed hope that the directresses
          would sell tickets enough to fill the hall. But they
          didn't. They took our two dollars away from us just the
          same. I always begrudged them that two-spot."
        </p>
        <p>
          "If you have the girls' school in it that can't happen,"
          Gail reminded him. "They're little demons at
          ticket-selling."
        </p>
        <p>
          So next day Phyllis took Joy with her, and also the De
          Guenthers as an evidence of deep respectability, and they
          drove over to the school, and actually secured the
          co-operation of the girls and their teachers. The thing
          was being so hurried through, as amateur theatricals
          should be to go well, that the whole thing would be over
          in two and a half weeks more. As Phyllis was personally
          very much liked by the principal, there was very little
          trouble made about it. Indeed, the teachers planned to
          take notes and borrow costumes, and give the thing
          themselves as a commencement entertainment the next June,
          if it proved possible.
        </p>
        <p>
          The boys were rather harder to get, but here, too, they
          succeeded, finally. And "Iolanthe" went prosperously on.
        </p>
        <p>
          In a couple more days Phyllis, who really could get
          almost anything she wanted from almost anybody, if she
          took the trouble, coaxed Joy back from Mrs. Hewitt.
        </p>
        <p>
          "You'll have her most of the rest of your natural life,"
          she pleaded. "And I saw her first. I think I ought to
          have her now."
        </p>
        <p>
          So Mrs. Hewitt reluctantly gave her up, and she went back
          to the Harrington house.
        </p>
        <p>
          She saw scarcely less of John, because he continued to
          come regularly to see them in the mornings on his way
          home, and generally got in a little visit in the
          afternoons, not counting the fact that he took her on his
          rounds with him three days out of five. And then, of
          course, there were the rehearsals.
        </p>
        <p>
          "My dear," he remonstrated with her, as they were on
          their way home from one of these, "I don't want to seem
          to scold you, but you shouldn't let young Gray put his
          arm around you the way he does."
        </p>
        <p>
          "Put his arm around me?" demanded Joy, quite honestly
          surprised. "Why, what do you mean? Oh&#8212;the
          rehearsals! Why&#8212;why, John! You and Allan have to
          put your arms around Gail every little while, and so does
          everybody else. And I'm supposed to be <i>Strephon's</i>
          mother. People have to, in theatricals."
        </p>
        <p>
          "Clarence seems to think so," said John dryly, and Joy
          turned her head to look at him more closely in the
          moonlight.
        </p>
        <p>
          "And now Clarence! Little Philip Harrington does, too,
          and I suppose you'll be telling me to have him stop
          next!"
        </p>
        <p>
          But at the scorn in her voice John only became firmer.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Gail Maddox is entirely different," he explained. It
          seemed to Joy that if he had offered her that explanation
          once he had a hundred times.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Gail is not different," said Joy firmly. "Anyway, Tiddy
          is just a baby."
        </p>
        <p>
          John could not help laughing.
        </p>
        <p>
          "He's not the only one who is just a baby," he said. "You
          little goose, he's three or four years older than you ...
          and heaven knows how much younger than I am." The thought
          of that, for some strange reason, worked a change in his
          mind. "Never mind me, little girl. I suppose I'm
          unreasonable."
        </p>
        <p>
          "Well, yes, I think you are," said Joy honestly. Then she
          laughed. It was very comfortable to have John jealous,
          even if it <i>was</i> silly of him. "All right, John,
          hereafter I will wear a wire cage whenever I have any
          scenes with Tiddy."
        </p>
        <p>
          "Better wear it when you have scenes with Clarence," said
          John rather sharply. "And let me tell you, a man that
          will try to steal&#8212;&#8212;"
        </p>
        <p>
          "Oh, nonsense!" said Joy calmly again. "First you say
          that Clarence is toying with me, then you say he's trying
          to steal me. Now it stands to reason he can't do both."
        </p>
        <p>
          She was so practical about it that John stopped in spite
          of himself.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I'm afraid I'm too much given to thinking people want to
          steal you," he said a little soberly.
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy wondered for the thousandth time about the nature of
          men.... Sometimes she almost thought she had made John
          care a good deal for her. And then again, when he rose up
          and defended Gail, she quite thought she hadn't. But as
          for Clarence, all that was very foolish. From the time
          she had seen him every one in the village who had come
          near her, it seemed to her, had carefully made it plain
          that Clarence was a male flirt, a love pirate, a gay
          deceiver, a trifler, a person with no
          intentions&#8212;anything but a man who was in love with
          her. He had practically said so himself, as far as she
          could remember. And she had been very pleased with the
          idea, and enjoyed his behavior&#8212;happy in the belief
          that everything he said had a stout string to
          it&#8212;very much. Even John admitted that he was
          amusing, and certainly he was good-looking and clever.
        </p>
        <p>
          But she smiled up at John.
        </p>
        <p>
          "It is very nice of you to feel that way," she said. "I
          appreciate it."
        </p>
        <p>
          "You annoying little person!" he replied, half-laughing.
          "Joy, if I hadn't learned that you were one of the most
          honest, straightforward girls in the world, sometimes I
          would think you were a good deal of a coquette."
        </p>
        <p>
          "We're here," said Joy irrelevantly for an answer. She
          still wished she knew more about men.
        </p>
        <p>
          Phyllis' remark about being useful seemed to be in a fair
          way to be fulfilled. Allan threatened to put out a sign,
          he said, on the front gate, "No coaching done between
          twelve and three A.M." Finally he did discover an
          excellent scheme, which consisted of making the house and
          garden look deserted, and locking himself and Phyllis in
          the library most of the day.
        </p>
        <p>
          "It's rather pleasant," he informed her. "Since I
          developed this plan I'm really getting more of your
          uninterrupted society than I have since this terrible
          "Iolanthe" devastated the village.... Just why did it
          happen, Phyllis&#8212;have you any idea?"
        </p>
        <p>
          "Speak lower," said Phyllis. "I'm perfectly certain I
          heard footsteps."
        </p>
        <p>
          "Probably a deputation from Miss Addams' school, to ask
          you whether the right or left foot comes first," her
          husband answered her quite accurately.
        </p>
        <p>
          "But, Allan dear," protested Phyllis, "you know perfectly
          well that if I don't go out and stem the tide they will
          find Joy, and tear the child away from the first moment
          she's had with John alone since I don't know when."
        </p>
        <p>
          "This is the first moment I've had alone with you since I
          don't know when," he answered, unmoved, coming over and
          putting both arms around her, to draw her resolutely away
          from the door. "And if you will consider carefully, my
          darling, you will remember that Joy is much younger than
          either of us, and hence has many more years to spend with
          John than you have with me. Now cease to be a slave to
          duty, or whatever it is, and come sit on the arm of my
          chair."
        </p>
        <p>
          "You'll never grow up!" said Phyllis protestingly; but
          she ceased to be a slave to duty immediately, and sat on
          the arm of his chair until he pulled her down on his lap,
          which he did almost on the spot.
        </p>
        <p>
          Meanwhile Joy, walking up and down in the garden paths
          and memorizing her part, had been found by John, who was
          trying to lure her off for a ride.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Nobody can find us on a galloping car," he said
          persuasively.
        </p>
        <p>
          But Joy was more steadfast than Phyllis.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I expect Tiddy over to rehearse with me," she said. "He
          will be here in about five minutes. You know that 'Good
          morrow, good mother' thing that he has to do prancing in
          and playing on a pipe. And none of us can make out what a
          pipe is. Tiddy says if there's no further light on it by
          next rehearsal he's going to use a meerschaum."
        </p>
        <p>
          "You might let me rehearse with you," grumbled John.
          "Every time I come near I find you dancing hand-in-hand
          with Tiddy or Clarence or Mrs. Beeson" (Mrs. Beeson was
          the gigantic Fairy Queen) "or sewing on some wild thing
          for some seminary child."
        </p>
        <p>
          "Some of those seminary children are only a year younger
          than I am," she reminded him. "But if you would like to
          rehearse your part with me you'll have to go find Allan.
          All your scenes are with him."
        </p>
        <p>
          "Allan has a well-trained wife and a lock on his door,"
          said John, who didn't in the least need to rehearse. "I
          have neither. Mother has made our house a happy
          hunting-ground, and at this moment Gail and Tiddy and
          Clarence are putting the Chorus of Peers through its
          paces. They aren't properly hand-picked. One of 'em
          squeaks."
        </p>
        <p>
          "They had to pick him, because he was so grand and tall,"
          Joy explained. "He isn't supposed to sing. I suppose he
          got carried away."
        </p>
        <p>
          "Suppose you get carried away," coaxed John, returning to
          the charge.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Now, John, you know the thing is to be given in a week,"
          remonstrated Joy. "And I have heaps to learn, and any
          amount more to sew."
        </p>
        <p>
          "Nevertheless&#8212;" said John, and suddenly laughed and
          tried to pick her up. He was very strong, and she was
          light and little, but she resisted valiantly. They were
          laughing and struggling like a couple of children, when
          they heard footsteps, and shamefacedly composed
          themselves to look very civilized. The choruses were all
          over the village at all times of the day and night after
          study hours, and John specially had to look after his
          decorum in their presence. But it was only Philip.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Seems to me it would be pleasanter," he remarked without
          preface, "if Angela and I had parts in this play. Angela
          thinks so, too."
        </p>
        <p>
          "Where is Angela?" asked Joy idly.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I put her up a tree," said Philip. "She's playing she's
          a little birdie. You haven't got any candy that we could
          play was worms, have you, Johnny?" he finished
          insinuatingly.
        </p>
        <p>
          But John and Joy had heard a wail in the direction whence
          Philip had come, and neither of them stopped to reply.
          Angela alone and up a tree was a picture that had
          appalling possibilities, and she was certainly crying as
          if the worst of them had happened.
        </p>
        <p>
          The wails seemed to come from the little pleasance where
          the fountain was, and Joy, as she ran, had a vision of a
          tree which Philip did climb with a ladder, and which he
          was quite capable of making Angela climb, too. The drop
          from his favorite limb was quite six feet.
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy reached the pleasance first. It was Angela who was
          shrieking, but the worst had not quite happened. She had
          wriggled herself out of the safe crotch where Philip had
          put her, and it was Heaven's mercy that she had not
          fallen. But her frock was a stout blue gingham,
          fortunately, and a projecting branch-stump was thrust
          through it, holding her in a horizontal position along
          the bough. She was crying and wriggling, and in another
          minute or so she might have fallen to the ground. There
          was a slight chance that she would have struck on the
          fountain.
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy was up the ladder and had the child in her arms in a
          moment. She held her till John, reaching up from below,
          relieved her of the burden, and set Angela on the grass,
          where she continued to cry.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Such a lot of crying about just a little hole in your
          frock!" remarked Philip to Angela. "I should think you'd
          be ashamed!"
        </p>
        <p>
          At which Angela stopped crying.
        </p>
        <p>
          "<i>Big</i> hole!" she said defensively, with a
          gulped-down sob, and began smoothing it down, where she
          sat on the grass.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Angela, Angela! Oh, Angela, is my baby hurt?" cried
          Phyllis, flying in from the garden path outside. She had
          heard the child cry, from where she and Allan were in the
          living-room, and with a mother's instinct had fled out
          and down to where the child was. Allan was hurrying
          behind her, but before he could catch her she had caught
          her foot on the root that stood out of the ground in a
          loop, and fallen headlong, striking her head on the edge
          of the marble basin.
        </p>
        <p>
          She lay, white and still, where she had fallen. Allan was
          at her side in a moment, begging her to speak to him.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Is she dead, John?" he demanded passionately of John,
          kneeling beside her. "Good God, man, can't you
          speak&#8212;is she dead?"
        </p>
        <p>
          "She's stunned," John answered. "I think that's all."
        </p>
        <p>
          "Her heart is beating," said her husband, with his hand
          on it. "I&#8212;I think it is. Oh, Phyllis, darling,
          won't you speak to me?"
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy put her hand quietly on his shoulder.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Allan," she said, "John can't do anything as long as you
          won't let him get near Phyllis. He can help quicker than
          you can."
        </p>
        <p>
          Allan shivered a little, then raised Phyllis so that her
          head rested on his knee, and John could get at her.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Do something quickly, John," he said. "I shall go crazy
          if she lies that way much longer. It's the first time I
          ever asked her for anything that she didn't give it to
          me&#8212;" his throat caught.
        </p>
        <p>
          "She'll be all right in a minute, old fellow. Don't take
          it that way," John reassured him. "Joy, dear, run to the
          house and get some brandy and spirits of ammonia, and a
          spoon. Hurry."
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy sped back to the house, and got the things from
          Lily-Anna, who unlocked and found with quick, capable
          hands, though she was evidently trying not to cry as she
          did it.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Jus' a natural-born angel," she said. "Here, hurry back,
          Miss Joy. Yas, that kind's too good to live. I might a'
          knowed it long ago. There's everything, child. Now go
          on!"
        </p>
        <p>
          It had seemed forever to Joy, but John assured her that
          she had been very swift. They forced a little of the
          stimulant through Phyllis' teeth, and presently her color
          began to come back.
        </p>
        <p>
          "There, she's coming round, Allan," said John. "You see
          there was no need to be so worried."
        </p>
        <p>
          "It wasn't you," said Allan briefly, then straightway
          forgot everything else, as Phyllis' eyes opened.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I'm dizzy," she said faintly. Then she saw Allan's face
          over hers, and farther away the others, grave and
          anxious, and she smiled. "Why, Allan, you poor boy, I've
          worried you to death. I'm&#8212;sorry&#8212;dear."
        </p>
        <p>
          Her breath came a little hard for a moment, for it had
          been a bad fall; but she was nearly all right again in a
          few minutes more, and laughing.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Allan, if you don't stop looking as if the world had
          come to an end, I shall faint again, whether I want to or
          not," she said. "You foolish man, didn't you ever see
          anything like that before?"
        </p>
        <p>
          "The world nearly did come to an end," said Allan in a
          low voice.
        </p>
        <p>
          She made no answer to this in words, but Joy saw her
          catch Allan's hand and hold it hard for a moment before
          the men helped her to rise to her feet. She was perfectly
          able to walk, she declared, after standing a moment and
          recovering from the dizziness that came over her for a
          moment when she got up. She went back to the house with
          Allan's arm around her, and the children, whom nobody had
          as yet taken time to scold, following, awestruck and very
          meek, at a safe distance behind.
        </p>
        <p>
          "He <i>did</i> act as if the world had come to an end,"
          mused Joy aloud. "I was frightened for a minute, though."
        </p>
        <p>
          "You didn't show it. You were very brave and
          clear-headed," John told her comfortingly.... "I don't
          know that I'd have behaved very differently in his place.
          As he said, it wasn't I."
        </p>
        <p>
          "Oh, was that what he meant?" said Joy. "I didn't quite
          know."
        </p>
        <p>
          "Thank heaven it wasn't!" said John.
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p><a name="ch14"><!--Marker--></a>
        <h2>
          CHAPTER FOURTEEN
        </h2>
        <h3>
          THE SLIGHTLY SURPRISING CLARENCE
        </h3>
        <p>
          Phyllis was perfectly all right the next day. She stayed
          in the hammock because Allan made her, and she confessed
          to a shadow of a headache, but altogether, she said, her
          accident was worth much less fuss than was made over it.
          The rehearsals swept relentlessly on, past all stemming.
          Clarence was getting thinner under the strain, which was
          very becoming, and pleased him exceedingly.
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy, too, was a little affected by the current of things.
          In all Clarence's off moments he was either with her or
          trying to be, and she could not at all make him out. If
          he had been anybody else she would have thought he was
          very much in earnest about trying to make her marry him.
          But, then, John, when she came to think of it, could have
          been described the same way. A bit of Gail's careless
          wisdom, dropped one day at rehearsal, gave her a clue to
          things. Gail had been stating to one of the teachers, who
          played <i>Fleta</i>, one of the leaders of the chorus,
          that she'd had four proposals that summer. Gail's
          attitude of cynical frankness about her desire to collect
          scalps was something to make the average person gasp. She
          really meant it. She was, as Joy had discovered by this
          time, quite without malice&#8212;also quite without
          considerateness.
        </p>
        <p>
          "It isn't difficult," said Gail to the stiffening
          teacher. "Competition is the soul of trade. If I can give
          the poor souls an idea that other men want me&#8212;quite
          flaunt them, you know&#8212;they all come bounding up to
          want me, too. It's very cheering, don't you think, to
          have a faithful hound or so about?"
        </p>
        <p>
          Fortunately the teacher was called away by the exigencies
          of her part, just at that moment. Joy, who was not easily
          shocked by Gail, having spent nearly four weeks in her
          immediate vicinity now, lingered. She had an inquiring
          mind.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Do you think that really is true, Gail, or were you just
          trying to shock Miss Archinard?" she asked.
        </p>
        <p>
          Gail laughed, her peculiar short, low laugh, that, like
          everything she said and did, had something a little
          mocking in it. It was curiously at variance with her
          boyishness. You could not say she was masculine, but
          there was a something stripped away from her which most
          people class as feminineness. Joy wondered if it was
          softness she missed&#8212;pity, perhaps, or tenderness.
          She was, at least, brilliant to the last degree when she
          talked, though it was a perfectly useless brilliance.
          Gail's life had no other end than amusing herself with
          whatever persons or things came her way. If they could be
          laughed at or employed in her service that was all she
          wanted.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Shocking Miss Archinard is a pathetic sort of
          performance," said Gail. "Any child can do it. You
          doubtless do yourself. Joy, she probably thinks your
          coloring too vivid for ladylikeness. Why, I'm perfectly
          willing to shock her&#8212;it's more interesting than
          talking to her as an equal&#8212;but I merely told the
          truth. You never in the world would have robbed me of the
          faithful Tiddy who now crawls at your feet, if he hadn't
          seen John and Clarence running frantically in your
          direction."
        </p>
        <p>
          That principle, it dawned on Joy, could be extended.
          Probably John and Clarence kept each other interested.
          There was a great deal to learn about men, but on the
          other hand, there seemed to be a few broad elementary
          rules to follow&#8212;if you were the kind of person who
          could be cold-blooded enough to follow them.
        </p>
        <p>
          "But don't you ever feel badly when you think how they
          get hurt?" she asked Gail a little timidly.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Everybody gets hurt once or twice that way," said Gail
          placidly. "I might as well have the satisfaction of doing
          it as some other girl." She looked reflectively across at
          her week-end man, who was just now wrestling with his
          solo, and obviously wanted to get back to her.
          "Besides&#8212;if you don't hurt <i>you</i> get hurt....
          Oh, I was a good, sweet, unselfish, considerate young
          thing once. I wasted much valuable time trying to be as
          nice as I could be.... Then <i>I</i> got hurt, and I
          decided that there wasn't anything in this consideration
          game. People seem to like me just as well now I'm
          perfectly selfish as they did when I wasn't."
        </p>
        <p>
          She laughed a little again, and lifted an eyebrow
          imperceptibly toward Private Willis, who promptly lost a
          bar of his solo.
        </p>
        <p>
          It was a difficult statement to correct without being
          rude. Joy let it go. For the first time in her
          acquaintance with Gail she had the key. She felt sorry
          for Gail for a moment&#8212;for that far-off childish
          Gail who had been so badly hurt that she hadn't ever
          dared let herself feel again. She did not know such a
          great deal about living herself, but she felt that Gail
          was wrong&#8212;that it was better to let things come to
          you and hurt you, if they would, and go on living, being
          a complete human being, no matter what happened to you.
        </p>
        <p>
          Then Gail spoke again, and Joy discovered that it was
          difficult to go on being sorry for her&#8212;for the
          present her, that is.
        </p>
        <p>
          "When you go back to your well-known grandparents," she
          stated with a frankness which had ceased to mislead Joy,
          "I shall make a final effort to ensnare John. He doesn't
          approve of me, but that will make life still more
          exciting. You don't mind, my child, do you?"
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy laughed.
        </p>
        <p>
          "You may have him&#8212;if you can get him!" she answered
          very gallantly considering the circumstances.
        </p>
        <p>
          What Gail said showed her something with a certainty
          which had been lacking before. John had never belonged to
          Gail. If Joy herself hadn't been so entirely in love with
          John she might have been made surer of him. But it is
          very hard to be positive of getting anything you want too
          intensely.
        </p>
        <p>
          As she rested silent a moment John himself came up beside
          her.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Tired, kiddie?" he said with the affectionate note in
          his voice that he always had when he used the little name
          he had for her. "You should have farmed out that sewing."
        </p>
        <p>
          "Do you mean to say you took a bundle of those gauze
          frocks to do, Joy?" demanded Gail.
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy nodded. Gail made her feel, as usual, as if she had
          been silly and imposed upon. The seminary girls were
          crowding their time as it was to get in the rehearsals,
          and the Principal had stated with finality that it would
          be impossible to give them time extra to work on their
          costumes. The mothers of some of them had been written
          home to and had responded, but some others of the girls
          had no one who could or would do the sewing, so Joy had
          volunteered, together with Phyllis, to run up the five or
          six of them that had to be done. She <i>was</i> a little
          tired.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I shall come over tomorrow morning and hide them," John
          threatened. But he smiled approvingly at her as he said
          it, and she knew that he liked her having done it. She
          knew well enough the long hours he spent with his charity
          patients, and all the things he did for the people in the
          village&#8212;things he never spoke of.
        </p>
        <p>
          She thought with a pang that was not a selfish one of
          John's lot, if he did finally marry Gail. She did not
          think he could be happy with a girl who would never try
          to make him so. His mother's affection for him was
          irresponsible enough, but it was very real and selfless.
          You couldn't imagine Gail married to John.
        </p>
        <p>
          "It'll be too late to hide them," she answered him
          brightly, coming out of her muse with an effort. "They're
          all done. There wasn't much work on them, comparatively."
        </p>
        <p>
          <br>
          &nbsp;&nbsp; <i>"Good morrow, good mother,<br>
          &nbsp;&nbsp; Good mother, good morrow!<br>
          &nbsp;&nbsp; By some means or other,<br>
          &nbsp;&nbsp; Pray banish your sorrow!"</i>
        </p>
        <p>
          sang Tiddy, frisking gently up to her. "It's our turn
          next, Joy. Clarence says he thinks we ought to emigrate
          in a body to the Opry House, and go through this thing
          <i>right</i>."
        </p>
        <p>
          John moaned.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Clarence is always having unnecessary thoughts of that
          sort. To hear him talk, you would think we had spent the
          last two weeks going through it wrong."
        </p>
        <p>
          "So we have," said Clarence. "Come now&#8212;all out. We
          are going over to rehearse on the august boards of the
          opera house, and then we are going home for brief bites,
          and then we are going back for a dress rehearsal.
          Tomorrow night is the night, and may the Lord have mercy
          on your souls!"
        </p>
        <p>
          At this reminder Clarence's weary company bestirred
          itself. The principals had been rehearsing, as usual, at
          the Hewitt house. They were to meet the chorus, it
          appeared, at the village opera house, and go through the
          whole thing there with the orchestra of tomorrow night; a
          kind-hearted orchestra which was willing to rehearse
          twice.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Why any of us ever began this thing, I <i>don't</i>
          see," growled John, as he deftly captured Joy, having
          made a neat flank movement which prevented Clarence from
          getting her. "Do you know, Joy"&#8212;he was putting her
          cloak on for her in the hall by this time&#8212;"I've
          seen about half as much of you as I would if I hadn't
          been lured into this. The rest of this week, after
          tomorrow night, you are going to have to spend
          exclusively in spoiling me. I'm twice as deserving as a
          high-school girl, and three times as deserving as
          Clarence and Tiddy. And I've more right to you, besides."
        </p>
        <p>
          "If you want rights, sometimes you have to take them,"
          said Joy demurely.
        </p>
        <p>
          He laughed.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Is that a suggestion? If so, it's an excellent one.
          Consider yourself thoroughly taken. You are not to be
          discovered in corners with Clarence, nor showing Tiddy
          how his steps should go."
        </p>
        <p>
          But Joy only laughed.
        </p>
        <p>
          There was little time for discussion after that. They
          rehearsed steadily, with the frenzied feeling of
          unpreparedness that only amateurs can fully know, till it
          was more than time for the "brief bite" of Clarence's
          description. Then the choruses were shepherded over to
          the Hewitt house and the Maddox house respectively, and
          fed, Clarence and Tiddy standing over them to see that no
          time was wasted.
        </p>
        <p>
          Then they went back, and went through the whole opera.
          The audience consisted of a few carefully chosen
          relatives who had insisted on being there, including the
          Harrington children. Phyllis was letting them see the
          dress rehearsal instead of the real performance, because
          the latter was to end with a dance, and there would have
          been some difficulty in tearing Philip away while things
          were still going on. The dress rehearsal promised to be
          over by nine-thirty, for they had started at six, and
          were sweeping through without a break, happily
          unconscious that Clarence intended them to do it all over
          again with all the mistakes severely corrected, as soon
          as they had ended the final chorus.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Gail, that isn't the way to do it," Clarence called to
          her sharply, as she danced in with the minimum of effort,
          in the "Good morrow, good mother" song that she had with
          Joy and Tiddy, respectively <i>Iolanthe</i> and
          <i>Strephon</i>. "Pick up your feet. You'll be down over
          that garland in the corner if you don't look out."
        </p>
        <p>
          "I'll pick them up tomorrow night," said Gail, pausing to
          answer him. "No use putting all this work on rehearsal."
        </p>
        <p>
          She was undoubtedly right. And undoubtedly the garland
          had no business to swing so loose, as Clarence himself
          afterwards admitted.
        </p>
        <p>
          But the fact remained. As Gail stepped reluctantly back,
          and recommenced her song, her high-heeled slipper caught
          in the swinging garland, and she came down flat, with the
          ankle badly turned under her.
        </p>
        <p>
          The opera stopped short while the others crowded around
          her and tried to find out how badly she was hurt. She sat
          up straight and tried to smile-Gail disliked having or
          showing feelings of any sort&#8212;but she was white with
          the pain, and when she tried to stand on the ankle it
          hurt her, as she admitted.
        </p>
        <p>
          They carried her off the stage in a chair, and John, who
          was donning his robes in the other dressing-room, was
          hurried over to see how badly she was hurt.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Don't stop for me, Clarence," Gail ordered. "On with the
          dance, let Joy be unrefined. That is, if she can. I know
          you're hungering to lash your wretched infant-school
          forward."
        </p>
        <p>
          Clarence remarked that she was plucky, patted her
          shoulder, and went thankfully off to put his chorus
          through an evolution or so while he could.
        </p>
        <p>
          John, meanwhile, with Phyllis' help, took off the pretty
          pink satin slipper, with its rosette, and the pink silk
          stocking, and found that Gail's ankle was badly sprained.
          They did it up properly, and Phyllis took Gail home.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Now what shall we do?" demanded Clarence at the end of
          the act, pushing the Lord Chancellor's wig to one side,
          and staring around him.
        </p>
        <p>
          "What about Gail's guest, the one that's coming down
          tomorrow?" offered Tiddy.
        </p>
        <p>
          "We have her cast, anyway," Clarence answered dolefully.
        </p>
        <p>
          "She's played Celia, the one that's a sort of
          lieutenant-fairy, before, and I remember the time I had
          getting her to memorize her words&#8212;not a long part
          at all. She could no more play Phyllis than I can."
        </p>
        <p>
          "Were you talking about the part, or about me?"' asked
          Phyllis Harrington, coming in again.
        </p>
        <p>
          "How is Gail?" asked everybody.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Ask John," said Phyllis. "Her ankle seems to be hurting
          her badly, poor girl. I hope it will be all right
          tomorrow night. I made her go to bed, and her mother is
          sworn to make her stay there. I'll go through her part
          for her now, Clarence, if it will be any help."
        </p>
        <p>
          Clarence stared at her.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Can you?" he asked.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Well, I know the words," said Phyllis. "And I don't
          think she will be able to rehearse again. It will be as
          much as she can do to get up tomorrow night and go
          through it."
        </p>
        <p>
          John shook his head. "I'm afraid she won't be able to do
          even that," he said.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Then you'll have to take the part, Phyllis!" said
          Clarence with a sudden decision. "Never mind dressing
          now. Take your hat off and see what you can do."
        </p>
        <p>
          "Understand, I'm only holding it," said Phyllis, but she
          would have been more than human if she had not flushed a
          little with pleasure at the idea.
        </p>
        <p>
          They began rehearsals again, and this time the opera went
          through with scarcely a hitch. The little chorus girls
          had come to adore Phyllis by this time, the boys were
          fond of her&#8212;there was scarcely one of the cast whom
          she had not helped over or through or under some one of
          the little hitches incident to private
          theatricals&#8212;and the whole cast was on its tiptoes
          to see her through. There was a new feeling in the thing,
          that Clarence noticed directly.
        </p>
        <p>
          "By Jove, we ought to have insisted on her doing it from
          the first," he told Tiddy, his lieutenant, under his
          breath. "I could have gotten twice as much work out of
          'em.'
        </p>
        <p>
          "Who'd have broken the news to Cousin?" he wanted to
          know.
        </p>
        <p>
          Clarence eyed him with the detached interest that was
          his, and meditated with a certain amusement on the
          changeableness of college boys. Two weeks before Tiddy
          would have lowered his voice in reverence at Gail's name.
          Then he glanced across at Joy, sitting close by Phyllis
          in her gauzes, with her wonderful bronze-gold hair
          hanging around her like a mantle, and conceded within
          himself that it was not so surprising after all.
        </p>
        <p>
          Sure enough, Gail was unable to bear much weight on her
          foot by the next day. She insisted on being dressed and
          driven down to the hurried last rehearsal on the
          afternoon of the performance. But she could not walk
          without support.
        </p>
        <p>
          "You'll have to take it, Phyllis," she conceded. "I shall
          look as beautiful as I can, and sit in the audience and
          hate you."
        </p>
        <p>
          "You ought to," said Phyllis mournfully. "I know if it
          were I in your place, I couldn't bear to come down and
          look at you."
        </p>
        <p>
          "I have to, anyway, on account of Laura," said Gail. Miss
          Ward had come, and was at that moment getting out of her
          wraps preparatory to meeting the cast and rehearsing.
        </p>
        <p>
          As Phyllis left her to go into the dressing-room and
          introduce the stranger, whom she had met, to the others,
          she heard Joy cry out in surprise.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Why, I know you&#8212;at least I've seen you, only you
          don't remember me," Joy was saying impulsively.
        </p>
        <p>
          Laura Ward, in the act of slipping off her coat, stopped
          in surprise.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Why, I have seen <i>you</i>" she said. "Where was it?"
        </p>
        <p>
          "I was posing for the Morrows," explained Joy. "You ran
          in and got some fixative. They had me for their mural
          decorations&#8212;&#8212;"
        </p>
        <p>
          <i>"Joy!"</i> called somebody in the tone of imperative
          need which is almost as summoning as a telephone bell,
          and Joy dashed off, holding up her green water-weeds with
          one hand and her draperies with the other. The meeting
          with Laura Ward seemed a pleasant sort of crowning to the
          day. She was the very same vivid, gipsy-looking girl who
          had dashed into the Morrow studio for a moment, and who
          had seemed to stand, to Joy then, for all the kinds of
          girl she had wanted to be and couldn't. And now she
          seemed just a pleasant person like oneself. Joy had
          caught up to her. It was like an omen.
        </p>
        <p>
          "What is it?" she called dutifully as she ran.
        </p>
        <p>
          She found no opportunity to see more of Miss Ward. She
          wanted to, for she was sure she was going to like her.
          She had always wanted to.
        </p>
        <p>
          "It's a good audience," breathed Clarence over her
          shoulder, as they looked through peep-holes in the
          curtain. "All the sisters and cousins and aunts have
          turned up. I say, Joy, the Fairy Queen was good for ten
          tickets at least. There's a row of her dear ones right
          across from aisle to aisle."
        </p>
        <p>
          The moment of the play had come all too swiftly, and in
          ten nerve-shattering minutes the curtain would go up. Ten
          minutes after that Joy would be rising out of a
          trap-door, in the character of a fairy who had spent the
          last twenty years at the bottom of a stream; incidentally
          she would be acting for the first time in her life. There
          was enough to be excited over; and yet it was none of
          these things that excited her&#8212;it was the curious
          note in Clarence Rutherford's voice as he spoke his
          trivial words in her ear.
        </p>
        <p>
          She moved away from him automatically. She was a little
          tired, tonight, of his persistent flirtation. It was all
          very well for a while, but surely&#8212;surely, she
          thought, it was time he'd had enough of it; and she went
          back off the stage, looking, though she scarcely
          acknowledged it to herself, for John. She felt as if she
          wanted to see as much of him as she could.
        </p>
        <p>
          He ought to have been in his dressing-room, but he was
          not. He was looking for her, she almost thought, for he
          came quickly toward her with his face lighted.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I'm so glad I found you before the thing commenced,
          kiddie," he said. "I just wanted to tell you that you're
          not to be frightened. Do you hear? I forbid you to be
          frightened." He smiled down at her protectingly. "You say
          you always do as I tell you&#8212;so you must this time.
          I know you're going to make a howling success of the
          opera.... My dear, <i>don't</i> look so worried about it
          all!"
        </p>
        <p>
          They were in a little dim passage where no one was likely
          to come, and he drew her close to him, and kept his arm
          around her.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Do I look worried?" she answered simply. "I wasn't
          thinking about 'Iolanthe' so much. I suppose I'm tired
          with rehearsals, for it seems to me as if something I
          didn't like was going to happen.... John, I never asked
          you before, but I feel so little and lonesome tonight,
          and suddenly far away from everybody. Please say that you
          haven't minded all the naughty things I've
          done&#8212;that you like me, and forgive me,
          and&#8212;&#8212;"
        </p>
        <p>
          "Like you and forgive you, foolish child! ... I don't
          know that I like you...." He looked down at her,
          laughingly. "And I have nothing to forgive you for. Why,
          Joy, it goes a great deal further than that. I thought
          you knew how much I cared for you."
        </p>
        <p>
          She clung to him, there in her green and white draperies,
          with her gold hair falling over them. She could scarcely
          believe the thing his words and voice said, but it was
          there to believe. She gave a little shiver and clung
          closer to him.
        </p>
        <p>
          "You&#8212;care?"
        </p>
        <p>
          "Of course I care!"
        </p>
        <p>
          He released her enough to lift up her flushed little
          face, and bend down and kiss it. "You knew that a long
          time ago. Kiddie&#8212;&#8212;"
        </p>
        <p>
          It was just then that the call-bell rang.
        </p>
        <p>
          She hurried to her place, her heart beating and her
          cheeks burning under the rouge. She was nearly sure that
          she had won&#8212;that the wishing ring had given her
          what she had asked of it. John had not said, "You and I
          are lovers, and we are going to be married" in so many
          words&#8212;but his voice&#8212;and his touch&#8212;and
          his laughing certainty&#8212;&#8212;
        </p>
        <p>
          She was very happy, so happy that she went through the
          opera in the state of some one drugged to ecstasy. She
          sang and danced and laughed, and helped Phyllis whenever
          she could in her difficult task of assuming a leading
          part at one day's notice, and felt as if the play had
          carried her into a veritable fairyland. Tiddy forgot half
          of his lines, the first time he spoke with her, watching
          her brilliant eyes and vividness, and she laughed and
          pulled him through. She was like a flame throughout the
          performance. Phyllis did wonders, considering the short
          time she had had in which to prepare, and the performance
          generally was so good that even the people who were in it
          were surprised.
        </p>
        <p>
          When it was safely over, and the dance was
          beginning&#8212;the dance was taking place at the Hewitt
          house&#8212;Joy flung herself down for a moment behind
          the curtains of the little alcove she knew so well by
          now, and caught her breath. She was hiding a little. She
          still had a curious reluctance to see Clarence again, and
          she felt as if she did not want to see John, either, for
          a little while. Because the next time she saw him she
          would probably know whether she was right or wrong. She
          was nearly certain she was right, but there was a little
          shivering possibility that she might not be. There was
          always Gail!...
        </p>
        <p>
          "Sorcerette, dear!" said Clarence's voice wooingly in the
          dim doorway.
        </p>
        <p>
          He had changed back to evening clothes, and looked very
          handsome, if a little theatrical, for the black was not
          quite yet off his brows and lashes. He, too, looked
          excited.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Come out and dance, Joy of my life," he said.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I'm&#8212;I'm waiting for John," she stammered. She
          still did not want to go with him.
        </p>
        <p>
          "John's otherwise engaged," Clarence informed her coolly.
          "Did you think Gail intended to go without one kind word
          the whole evening? Not so! Come, or I'll think you mean
          to be highly impolite."
        </p>
        <p>
          The same reluctance still held Joy's feet, and she did
          not like the insinuation, but there really seemed no way
          out.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Cheer up, Sorcerette, dear," he said in her ear, as he
          swept her away. "'Get happy, chile, ain't you done got
          me?'"
        </p>
        <p>
          She did not talk. She did not feel like it. She merely
          danced lightly on with Clarence, letting him say what he
          pleased.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Do you remember the first time we danced together, Joy,
          the first time you ever danced with any one? I have
          always been so glad I was the first man you ever danced
          with."
        </p>
        <p>
          "Why?" she asked absently. She wanted to get away, to get
          back to John Hewitt.
        </p>
        <p>
          His arms tightened.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Why? You know perfectly well why. You have got
          me&#8212;do you know it? From the very first minute I
          ever saw you."
        </p>
        <p>
          She smiled up at him, and shook her head.
        </p>
        <p>
          "You make love beautifully," she heard herself saying
          coolly. "But you really shouldn't make it to your host's
          fianc&eacute;e in his house. It isn't done."
        </p>
        <p>
          "Don't you suppose I know that?" answered Clarence
          tempestuously. "Joy Havenith, do you mean to say that you
          think I'm doing the ordinary love-making one does in any
          conservatory?"
        </p>
        <p>
          She smiled a little. He was more like the Clarence she
          usually knew, and she did not take it at all seriously.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Why, you do it better than most," she said. "Go on. I
          like it."
        </p>
        <p>
          If there was one thing she knew well, it was Clarence's
          love-making. Indeed, she had come to the point where
          Clarence's remarks scarcely constituted love-making at
          all in her eyes. They were merely his kind of manners,
          and she was a little tired of them.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Good heavens! How on earth am I going to convince you?"
          she heard him say, with a little surprise. This was not
          the kind of thing he said ordinarily. "Joy, I fell in
          love with you, the real kind of love, the first night I
          saw you. You've known it all along. I wish you'd stop
          pretending not to&#8212;I'm getting tired of it. I want
          to marry you&#8212;I'd marry you tonight if you said the
          word. I'll come over and get you tomorrow and marry you
          if you'll let me. I don't suppose you will. But I do
          expect to keep on at you till you do.... Good heaven,
          child, haven't you seen I was in earnest?" he broke off
          at the expression of her wide-open eyes.
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy believed in love at first sight, as she had every
          personal reason to, but in spite of Clarence's intensity
          she was not quite convinced. She looked up at him. He was
          white, and his mouth was tense. And he was holding her
          like a vise. He was in earnest.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Maybe&#8212;maybe you think you do mean it now." she
          said breathlessly. "If you do&#8212;I'm sorry for you. It
          isn't nice to be in love unless the other person is,
          too."
        </p>
        <p>
          "What do you know about it?" he burst out angrily. "You
          aren't in love with that virtuous citizen of yours,
          whether or not he is with you. Let him go back to Gail.
          She's been considering one of her tame cats for a year,
          and she'd about decided to marry him when you came along
          and broke it up. You'd sweep any man off his feet. You
          and I belong together, Joy darling. I'm going to marry
          you, if you were engaged to the whole College of
          Surgeons."
        </p>
        <p>
          "The dance is over," said Joy a little faintly.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Then come over here where it's quiet. I haven't
          finished."
        </p>
        <p>
          "Oh, please no&#8212;" cried Joy, freeing herself from
          his hold eagerly. This was getting unexpectedly like
          earnest, and it had been a shock. She did not want to
          hear any more about how Clarence felt.
        </p>
        <p>
          She hurried across the floor without waiting for him, to
          where Allan and Phyllis were still standing together.
          They had stolen a dance with each other&#8212;they danced
          together altogether too much for married people, anyway,
          Mrs. Hewitt said.
        </p>
        <p>
          The atmosphere of happiness and serenity that was about
          Phyllis was something Joy could always rest in
          thankfully. Her own moods alternated so that Phyllis'
          calmness was an especial comfort.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I&#8212;I'm so tired," she said wistfully. "Couldn't we
          go soon?"
        </p>
        <p>
          "I should think we could," said Phyllis willingly, while
          Allan seconded the motion with joy.
        </p>
        <p>
          "There's no place like home," he said. "I've been
          considering the fact that it was getting on for four, and
          that I have an appointment at ten tomorrow, for a
          half-hour. Go get your wraps, Phyllis, my darling, and
          I'll get John, as my share of the bargain. We'll be
          awaiting you happily in a dark corner of the porch."
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy wanted to flee from Clarence. And she looked forward
          happily to being with John on the back seat of the motor,
          and talking over the evening with him. She would learn,
          perhaps, just what he had meant when he had seen her
          last. Her heart beat hard with the excitement of the
          thought. She was nearly sure&#8212;dear wishing ring!
        </p>
        <p>
          She slipped off, after speaking to Mrs. Hewitt, and saw
          Allan and John moving off together to the men's
          cloak-room.
        </p>
        <p>
          She sang softly to herself as she put on her cloak. She
          would be with John again in a moment. He had smiled at
          her as he passed out of sight. What were Clarences and
          such small things? This was a wonderful world.
        </p>
        <p>
          She and Phyllis came down the stairs together as
          unobtrusively as they could, so as not to betray to the
          rest that they were going. She had forgotten about Gail.
        </p>
        <p>
          But Gail was the first thing she saw&#8212;half-lying on
          a couch in a dark corner of the hall, holding court with
          Laura Ward. There were two or three men around them, and
          they were laughing and talking together. Joy waved her
          hand as they passed, and Gail looked up from her
          laughter.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Farewell, my dears, until tomorrow! Good-by, Joy. It was
          a well-done opera, even if I was sitting in the audience
          being fiendishly jealous.... Oh, I forgot to tell you
          that I have learned your dark secret, my child! I think
          you're the most ingenious little wretch that ever lived.
          Till tomorrow! I'm going to give a tea&#8212;be
          prepared!"
        </p>
        <p>
          She looked at Laura Ward and laughed again.
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p><a name="ch15"><!--Marker--></a>
        <h2>
          CHAPTER FIFTEEN
        </h2>
        <h3>
          THE GIFT OF THE RING
        </h3>
        <p>
          Joy had no idea in the world how she got into the car.
          John's guiding hand on her arm probably was all that
          saved her from stumbling into the hedge, or trying to
          walk up a tree, she thought afterwards. She was on the
          back seat, finally, with John by her. She laid her head
          back with a little tired half-moan, and felt John's
          strong, comforting arm drawing her over so that she could
          rest against his shoulder.
        </p>
        <p>
          "You poor little girl, you're all worn out," she heard
          him say tenderly. "But I was proud of you, little Joy. I
          didn't know what a wonderful person I had found....
          Little fairy princess!"
        </p>
        <p>
          Ten minutes earlier the note of affection and pride in
          his voice would have made Joy so deliriously happy that
          she wouldn't have known what to do. But ... Gail knew ...
          Gail knew all about it all! ... How could men! And she
          had said she was going to give a tea. That probably meant
          that she was going to tell everybody everything, and
          laugh about it.
        </p>
        <p>
          She <i>was</i> tired, and the shock of Gail's words had
          taken all the capacity for action out of her. She knew
          that if she'd had any proper feelings she would have
          moved coldly away from John, and accused him of betraying
          her to Gail, and demanded why he had done it. Evidently
          she had no proper feelings. You can't have, if you love
          people hard. She merely lay against John's strong, broad
          shoulder that felt so alive and comforting, and thought
          that this was the last time she would ever lean against
          it, or feel, as she always did when he touched her, as if
          there was some one who would look after her, and stand
          between her and every one else. She could not talk.
        </p>
        <p>
          When they reached the Harrington house Allan took the car
          around to the garage at the back, himself, and Phyllis
          said she would stay in the car with him while he locked
          the garage. The men began to tease her for the idea she
          had offered, but Joy, hearing Phyllis laughingly defend
          herself, and explain what she really meant, knew that it
          was Phyllis' way of giving John a chance to say
          good-night to her alone.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Dear Phyllis!" she thought, with a gush of gratitude in
          her heart that there was one person in the world so
          unfailingly thoughtful and honest and dependable. The
          world did not quite go down in ruins while Phyllis stood
          her friend.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Dear Phyllis!" she heard John's gay voice say, as if in
          echo of her own thoughts. "She knew I'd want a chance to
          see you alone a minute.... What an awful amount of people
          too many there are in the world, aren't there, kiddie?
          I'm beginning to think with yearning of Crusoe's isle,
          and a barbed-wire fence around that."
        </p>
        <p>
          He drew her into the shadow of the vines on the porch,
          and took her in his arms. ... And he had told Gail ...
          oh, how <i>could</i> men?
        </p>
        <p>
          For a moment she stood, passive. Then the nearness of
          him, and the cruel last-timeness of it all, swept over
          her again, and she threw her arms around his neck
          convulsively, and kissed him over and over again. She
          wanted it to remember.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Good-by, my dearest!" she whispered.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Not good-by, dear&#8212;good-night!" he answered her.
          "It's a long time till tomorrow, but thank goodness, it's
          coming. And all the tomorrows after that."
        </p>
        <p>
          "No&#8212;" she started to say, when she heard footsteps,
          and John released her.
        </p>
        <p>
          "It's a very dark night," said Allan sadly. "I couldn't
          see my best friend, even if he were on my own porch.
          Coming in, John?"
        </p>
        <p>
          "Allan, you have the tact of Talleyrand, or whoever it
          was they used to kick," responded John amiably. "No, I
          can't come in. It's at least four o'clock, and I have to
          be up at seven tomorrow. I'll drop in some time in the
          morning&#8212;you won't have a chance to miss me."
        </p>
        <p>
          He said good-night to them all, and went down from the
          porch. They could hear him whistling "With Strephon for
          Your Foe" joyously down the path, and, more dimly, down
          the road that led to his house.
        </p>
        <p>
          "There goes, I should say, a fairly happy man," remarked
          Allan to the world at large. "Now, Joy, if any one asked
          you, what would you say made him so contented with life?"
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy liked Allan's brotherly teasing as a rule, but
          tonight it seemed as if she could not answer him, or
          anybody. She did, not feel as if she could talk any more,
          and looked appealingly at Phyllis.
        </p>
        <p>
          "She's dead to the world, Allan," Phyllis interposed.
          "And if we stay down here talking those imps of ours are
          going to wake up and demand tribute."
        </p>
        <p>
          "Great Scott, they are!" said Allan, "and the buns and
          stuff you held Mrs. Hewitt up for are in the bottom of
          the car, locked up in the garage&#8212;where <i>you</i>
          wanted to be."
        </p>
        <p>
          "Which is providential," said the children's mother
          thankfully. "It's an alibi. They can't get any till
          tomorrow, no matter how much we want to give them any."
        </p>
        <p>
          So they tiptoed up the stairs. Joy turned off into her
          own room, but she heard enough to know that no
          soft-footedness had availed. She heard Philip's clear,
          deliberate little voice demanding, "How much party did
          you bring me home, Mother?" and the hopeful patter of
          Angela's feet.
        </p>
        <p>
          She shut her door tight before she knew how it turned
          out. She had a good deal to do, because she was going to
          have to take a train that got her away from Wallraven
          before John found time from his rounds to come back next
          morning. Gail might have told Mrs. Hewitt&#8212;any
          number of people&#8212;by this time. She did not want to
          see any of them again. And she loved them all very much.
        </p>
        <p>
          She took off her frock with slow, careful fingers, and
          put on a kimono to pack in. Her trunk was against the
          wall. As she worked steadily over the tissue-paper and
          hangers and things to be folded, she thought she was
          beyond feeling anything at all, till she felt something
          wet on her face, and found that she was crying silently,
          without having known it in the least.
        </p>
        <p>
          The green and silver frock&#8212;the white
          top-coat&#8212;that had burrs on it, where she had gotten
          out by the roadside to pick some goldenrod, and John had
          not gotten them all quite off&#8212;the little blue dress
          with the fichu that John had said made her look as if she
          belonged in a house instead of a story-book&#8212;the
          gray silk she had loved so, and worn so hard it was
          middle-age-looking already&#8212;the brown wool jersey
          suit she must travel in&#8212;&#8212;
        </p>
        <p>
          She laid this last across a chair, and tried to go on
          packing. That was the frock she had worn when John came
          to her in the woods, and was so kind, and so good, and
          told her he would let her have her happy month.... Well,
          she'd had it. And it was worth it&#8212;it was worth
          anything!
        </p>
        <p>
          But she put her head down on the side of the trunk and
          sobbed and sobbed.
        </p>
        <p>
          Presently she went on with her packing, and finished it
          by a little after four-thirty. The suitcase had to be
          filled. When it was done she took a bath and dressed, and
          lay down on the bed as she was. There was a train at
          nine-ten, that got her back home late in the afternoon,
          and she was taking no chances.
        </p>
        <p>
          She slept a little, always with the nine-ten train on her
          mind, and finally rose and locked her trunk at half-past
          seven. She put the key and her ticket and what money she
          had in her hand-bag, fastened on her cap, took her
          suitcase, and stole downstairs. Nobody was astir yet but
          Lily-Anna, and Viola, who was giving the early-waking
          Angela her breakfast in an informal way in the corner of
          the kitchen.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Could I have a cup of coffee in a little while now,
          Lily-Anna?" she asked the cook, who was making beaten
          biscuit in an echoing fashion that would have penetrated
          any but the thick hundred-year-old walls of the kitchen.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Why, Miss Joy&#8212;you goin' off on a ride with Dr.
          Johnny this early?" inquired Lily-Anna, thinking the
          natural thing. "Course you can. I'll make it right now.
          An' I'll tell Mis' Harrington."
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy had forgotten Phyllis in her wild desire for flight.
          But she remembered now. She would have to call Phyllis
          and tell her. Indeed, she would rather tell her herself
          than have Gail know. She couldn't go off this way, as if
          she was taking the silver with her.
        </p>
        <p>
          She retraced her steps up the stairs, opened the door of
          Phyllis' room softly. Phyllis' bed was near the door, and
          she sat up at the slight noise. Joy beckoned to her, and
          she slipped out of bed, flinging around her a blue kimono
          that lay across the footboard and setting her feet
          noiselessly in slippers as she came out with the swift,
          gliding step that was characteristic of her. She gathered
          back the loose masses of her amber-colored hair and flung
          them over her shoulder, shut the door softly in order not
          to disturb Allan, and followed Joy down the hall.
        </p>
        <p>
          "What is it, dear?" she asked. "Telephone at this
          unchristian hour?"
        </p>
        <p>
          "I'm sorry to disturb you," Joy answered, "but I had to.
          Where can we go where I can talk to you for half an
          hour&#8212;or maybe ten minutes?"
        </p>
        <p>
          There was a glowing fire in the living-room, and, of old
          custom, a long couch stood before it. Phyllis led the way
          downstairs to this, and established Joy on it, drawing a
          chair up to it herself.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Now tell me all about it," she said comfortingly. "And
          lie down, child&#8212;you look dead."
        </p>
        <p>
          But Joy was too nervous to lie down.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I have to go away on the nine-ten," she said.... "No,
          please, Phyllis, wait till I tell you, and you'll see I
          do. You would, too."
        </p>
        <p>
          Phyllis always took the least nerve-wearing way&#8212;you
          could count on her for that. She listened encouragingly.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Gail said last night she&#8212;she knew my dark secret."
          Joy began nervously in the middle. "And you know Gail
          does tell anything about anybody she wants to, especially
          if she thinks it makes a funny story,&#8212;sometimes I
          think perhaps she likes making people ridiculous.... She
          doesn't care about feelings...."
        </p>
        <p>
          "Why, you poor child, have you a dark secret?" asked
          Phyllis, smiling. "Let me hear the worst. I promise to
          love you still."
        </p>
        <p>
          "Oh <i>please</i> do!" implored Joy. She dropped her head
          on the couch cushions and talked with her face hidden on
          one arm. "Phyllis, I&#8212;I never was engaged to John!"
        </p>
        <p>
          The bombshell did not at all have the effect she had
          expected.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I'm sorry to contradict you, but you certainly are,"
          said Phyllis placidly.
        </p>
        <p>
          "You don't understand," went on Joy, coming out from her
          shelter. "Listen."
        </p>
        <p>
          So she told Phyllis, with both her quivering little hands
          locked in one of Phyllis' strong, firm ones, the whole
          story&#8212;the story of the shut up, youthless life
          among the people who came to give her grandfather homage,
          and regarded her as a plaything or a stage-property, and
          of how she had seen the two young lovers one wet day, and
          been stirred into a wild rebellion for a youth of her
          own.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I understand," said Phyllis here. "You were 'half-sick
          of shadows.' I went through that myself. There comes a
          time when you'd do <i>anything</i>."
        </p>
        <p>
          "You understand?" asked Joy with wide eyes, "you with a
          husband that adores the ground you walk on?"
        </p>
        <p>
          "I do understand," affirmed Phyllis, with her mind flying
          back for a moment to a gray February day in a
          Philadelphia library&#8212;a day that was eight years old
          now. "I think I can understand anything you are going to
          tell me."
        </p>
        <p>
          But Joy went on to the day when she had hidden on the
          stairs to get away from the people, and John had come in,
          with the light glinting on his hair, and catching in the
          ring on his finger.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I suppose I fell in love with him then, though I didn't
          know what it was," Joy confessed. "And when I met you and
          Philip and Allan I loved you all so, too, and it seemed
          so queer you liked me&#8212;just me, you know, not
          somebody's granddaughter that he used for trimmings!"
        </p>
        <p>
          "Who wouldn't?" said Phyllis matter-of-factly. "So far as
          I can see, most people are crazy over you."
        </p>
        <p>
          "And Grandfather wouldn't let me go unless I'd been
          engaged&#8212;or he said that was the only
          reason&#8212;he thought I couldn't be, of course.
          And&#8212;and it flew out. And I used John's name when he
          cornered me, because I remembered him, and how kind he'd
          been. And on top of that&#8212;&#8212;"
        </p>
        <p>
          "And on top of that John turned up! Good gracious!" said
          Phyllis. She could not help a little laugh but her face
          sobered swiftly. "<i>Think</i> of that man's cleverness
          and self-control! Why&#8212;why, Joy, no man would do all
          that unless he cared for you a little, anyhow."
        </p>
        <p>
          "John would," said Joy with conviction. "You know how he
          is about honor and courtesy and doing things for people."
        </p>
        <p>
          Phyllis nodded. That was an incontrovertible fact.
        </p>
        <p>
          "And he's told Gail," Joy went on. "That's the only
          secret I ever had in my life, so it <i>must</i> be that.
          So I'm going to run away. I simply can't stay and..."
        </p>
        <p>
          "Told Gail! Ridiculous!" cried Phyllis. "Unless ...
          unless&#8212;&#8212;"
        </p>
        <p>
          "Unless there was some understanding between them before
          and John was simply overchivalrous when he helped me,"
          Joy finished steadily. "Yes, that's the only answer....
          I'm going. Please don't forget me."
        </p>
        <p>
          "You foolish child!"
        </p>
        <p>
          "There's another reason," Joy added. "Clarence proposed
          last night. I'd be almost sure to say 'yes' to save my
          face about the other thing, if I stayed, and I might have
          to marry him if I did.... Queer that Clarence, that I and
          everybody knew was just a plain flirt, should really want
          to, and John not!" she added absently. "Good-by."
        </p>
        <p>
          She was off the couch and had hurried out of doors, where
          Phyllis, half-clad as she was, could not follow her.
        </p>
        <p>
          Phyllis rose and went to the door, but the little slim
          brown figure was already going swiftly toward the
          station, her suitcase swinging in her hand.
        </p>
        <p>
          It occurred to Phyllis as she walked over to the
          telephone that usually crises found her clad in a blue
          negligee of some sort. Then she got Dr. Hewitt's number.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Is that you, John Hewitt?" she called. "Come over to
          this house this moment! ... Yes, something serious
          <i>has</i> happened. And don't ask for Allan&#8212;ask
          for me. I'll be on the porch waiting for you if I can. If
          not, stay there and wait for me. This is
          private&#8212;and&#8212;yes, about Joy! Come!"
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy got the train with a desolately long interval of
          waiting at the station. It was a day-coach. She had all
          the time in the world to think things out. Her
          grandparents were back in the city house, she knew. They
          would be glad to see her in their different ways, she
          knew that, too. She could drop into her niche
          noiselessly, with scarcely a question from Grandfather,
          and all the lovingness in the world from Grandmother,
          except if Grandfather needed attention. The old gowns
          were still in her closet.... <i>When she got home it
          would be reception day!</i>
        </p>
        <p>
          As this recollection forced itself on her she felt her
          heart sink lower than it had been before. All the
          tormenting memories in the world&#8212;and Grandfather
          would make her dress and be there....
        </p>
        <p>
          She clasped her hands involuntarily, and felt on the left
          one the pressure of the wishing ring. She had meant to
          take it off and leave it with Phyllis, and she had
          forgotten to.
        </p>
        <p>
          "There isn't much left to wish," she thought. She clasped
          her hands tighter over it. "Nothing much&#8212;but to get
          to sleep for a little while, and dream it isn't so.
          I&#8212;I suppose I can do that without a wish."
        </p>
        <p>
          She tried very hard, and she had only had about three
          hours of sleep that night, not to speak of a most
          exciting evening before it. She really thought in her
          heart that she couldn't sleep, but she laid her head back
          against the hot red velvet of the seat, and actually did
          sleep dangerously near the time to change cars. She got a
          chair-car after that, but, having got into the way of it,
          drowsed again. She woke up from a dream that John was
          coming down the aisle, only Gail was somewhere outside
          with a rope around his arms, and was going to pull him
          back in a minute, to find that she was at the journey's
          end. She had only her suitcase to gather up. She had not
          even asked Phyllis to send her trunk. Well, Phyllis
          would, anyway.
        </p>
        <p>
          The old house was just the same. She thought
          irrepressibly, as she came slowly up the steps, about the
          little boy who ran away from home, and when he came back
          after four hours, fidgeted a while, and then said
          off-handedly, "Well, I see you have the same old cat!"
          She knew exactly how that small boy had felt.
        </p>
        <p>
          "The same old cats!" she said half-aloud as three plump,
          velvet-upholstered ladies ambled down the steps, and
          passed her without knowing her. Then she checked her mind
          in its careering. "I mustn't get Gailish, even if I am
          unhappy," she reminded herself. "That's the sort of thing
          she'd say."
        </p>
        <p>
          Old Elizabeth was in the hall, in attendance, as usual.
          Joy flung her arms round her impulsively and kissed her.
          It was good to see her again, and to know that she didn't
          know any terrible things about her having commandeered a
          lover that really belonged to somebody else.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Oh, Miss Joy, Miss Joy dear!" said old Elizabeth. "How
          good you got here in time for the reception! And it's
          good to see you, too. Run up and git into some pretty
          clothes like your grandpa likes, and go right into the
          parlor."
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy smiled a little as she obeyed old Elizabeth. It
          seemed queer, and yet natural, to come back and slip into
          her old place as a minor figure in the old unbreakable
          routine. She had been a real person with a major part to
          play, all these weeks at Wallraven.... But it was rather
          a comfort, now, to feel that it didn't matter to anybody
          what you did, as long as Grandfather was pleased. And she
          felt as if she was willing to be a whole row of parlor
          bric-a-brac, she was so meek and so tired and unhappy.
        </p>
        <p>
          It was the amber satin she had rebelled so against that
          she took out of her suitcase deliberately and put on. It
          was tight across the chest, and actually a little short
          for her&#8212;she had <i>grown</i>, really grown in the
          active open-air weeks she had been away. She was tanned,
          too, she found when the yellow dress was on, and there
          was a freckle on the back of one little white hand. She
          braided her hair in the old way and went down to the long
          parlors, back to the autographed pictures and framed
          letters, and Grandfather, benignantly great at the end of
          the room.
        </p>
        <p>
          Grandmother was very glad to see her. They snatched a
          minute in a dark corner before they had to go on seeing
          guests. Joy found herself going up and down the room
          saying courteous things to people in just the old way.
          They were not surprised to see her. Perhaps they had
          scarcely noticed that she had been away.
        </p>
        <p>
          "It's the same old cat&#8212;I've only been away three
          hours," she reminded herself with a little rueful smile.
          Then she saw a shy-looking couple over in the corner, and
          went over, to try to put them at ease.... She wouldn't
          have thought about people being shy or needing putting at
          ease before she went away!...
        </p>
        <p>
          "Something <i>has</i> happened to me," thought Joy. Then
          she thought what it was. Why, she was doing the way John
          would have done&#8212;thinking about other people's
          feelings, not her own, for one minute. It felt warm in
          her heart. She had that for a keepsake from John, anyway.
        </p>
        <p>
          But she found she was making a mistake to think about
          John. After a half-hour of moving about the long parlors
          she fled. The little dark place in the back hall was just
          the same. Six weeks, naturally, had not altered it.
        </p>
        <p>
          She sat down on the bottom step in a little heap, with
          her face in her hands, under Aunt Lucilla's triumphant
          picture. She remembered it above her, but she did not
          want to look at it.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I wish you hadn't egged me on, Aunt Lucilla," she said
          most unfairly from between her hands.
        </p>
        <p>
          She did not know how long she had sat there, when she
          heard a little squeak, and looked up with her heart
          jumping. It sounded like the squeak doors make that
          haven't been opened for&#8212;say&#8212;six weeks or two
          months....
        </p>
        <p>
          There in the ray of light from the chandelier in the room
          behind, the light glinting on his fair curly hair, he
          stood as he had stood before, the wishing-ring man.
        </p>
        <p>
          For a moment Joy thought she was seeing something that
          wasn't so. Then she looked down. The ring was on her
          finger still, not on his. And he was not a vision. He was
          a human man, a man she knew and loved. And he did not
          smile at her this time, as the vision would have done, in
          a quizzical, stranger-friendly fashion, and stand still.
          He was over at her side in one swift step, and he had
          both her hands tight, as if they belonged to him, and he
          was talking to her in a loving, scolding voice, as people
          only talk to you when you belong to them and they to you.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Joy! You very naughty little girl, to run away this
          way!"
        </p>
        <p>
          For a minute she only wanted to cling to his hands and
          tell him how glad&#8212;how glad she was to see him, and
          how nothing else in the whole beautiful world mattered at
          all. But she remembered she mustn't.
        </p>
        <p>
          "You told Gail. You might have known she'd shame me
          before everybody if she could. She doesn't care.... Oh,
          John, how could you?"
        </p>
        <p>
          She held on to him hard for comfort even while she was
          reproaching him.
        </p><a name="picref"><!--Marker--></a>
        <p>
          He looked down at her in the half-light, then, as if he
          was fairly content with what he saw in her face, closed
          the door behind him. They could still see each other
          enough to talk.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Next time give me a little more benefit of the doubt, my
          dear. <i>I never told Gail anything</i>!"
        </p>
        <p>
          When John told you anything it was so. That was all there
          was to <i>that</i>. She gave a gasp of blessed relief.
        </p>
        <p>
          "But&#8212;" she protested. "But Gail knew&#8212;&#8212;"
        </p>
        <p>
          He sat down on the step below her.
        </p>
        <p>
          "But Gail didn't know anything! Gail never will know
          anything. Nobody ever will but you and I and Phyllis
          Harrington, who is much safer than a church. But it did
          take a certain amount of diplomacy to extract from Gail
          exactly what she said to you that frightened you into
          another state&#8212;or rather what she meant by it."
        </p>
        <p>
          He was smiling now. Could it possibly be&#8212;&#8212;
        </p>
        <p>
          "I went to Gail as soon as Phyllis had called me up and
          had had it out with me&#8212;which, I may add, she did
          rather severely," he went on calmly, though he still held
          one hand as if he was afraid Joy would vanish again. "And
          Gail said&#8212;&#8212;"
        </p>
        <p>
          He stopped provokingly, and Joy held her breath.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Well, I won't torment you, though I am inclined to think
          you deserve it. It appears that Gail had learned from
          that friend of hers, Laura Ward, to whom she had spoken
          of you and your people, that you posed as a model for a
          couple of artists, just before you left this city, in
          order to earn money for gowns. The girl lived in the same
          studio building with them ... their name was Morrow, I
          think. She was under the impression that you were a
          professional model till the Morrows explained, and you
          had struck her as such a very good type that she
          remembered you and the whole episode. Gail was teasing
          you about it, as she teases every one. She has a
          provocative, half-mocking manner that she lets go too far
          sometimes. I'm not inclined to forgive her for tormenting
          my little girl."
        </p>
        <p>
          Joy gave a long sigh of relief.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Then&#8212;you're not engaged to Gail?"
        </p>
        <p>
          He gave the hands he held a little half-impatient,
          half-loving shake.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Would I have asked you to marry me under those
          circumstances?"
        </p>
        <p>
          "You never asked me to marry you," said Joy in a subdued
          voice. She felt as if the world were coming down around
          her ears. "I was a trial fianc&eacute;e, and a good deal
          of a trial at that, as you said. And&#8212;you only did
          it to oblige me, and&#8212;and I'm very much obliged
          and&#8212;and hadn't you better go?"
        </p>
        <p>
          If he stayed much longer&#8212;&#8212;
        </p>
        <p>
          His voice, that had been light, became more tender and
          more serious.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Joy, do you think I could see much of you without caring
          for you? When I first met you I took you for a child, and
          there was so much of the child about you afterwards that,
          when I yielded to an impulse and helped you out of your
          dilemma I scarcely knew I was in love with you. But it
          didn't take me long after that to find it out. And my
          only fear was that you were going through it all in the
          same childlike spirit, that you couldn't care for me. But
          when I asked you if you belonged to me, and you
          said&#8212;do you remember? You always were
          human&#8212;for me'&#8212;why&#8212;" his voice became
          happier again, for she had not drawn away, "why, I
          thought I was asking you to marry me. And I thought you
          were saying you would. But if you weren't....
          <i>Don't</i> you care, Joy? <i>Aren't</i> you mine? It
          doesn't seem as if you could be any one else's."
        </p>
        <p>
          His voice broke.
        </p>
        <p>
          She bent down, where she sat above him. Her voice was
          very happy and very tender.
        </p>
        <p>
          "But I always was, John. Always, from the first minute
          you opened the door there, and looked at me, and spoke.
          I&#8212;I expect I always shall be."
        </p>
        <p>
          Neither of them spoke for a while after that. Presently
          John held her off and looked at her, and laughed a
          little.
        </p>
        <p>
          "Well, what?" demanded Joy peacefully. She didn't much
          care what, but she wanted to know. "And Elizabeth
          sometimes brushes under these stairs when receptions are
          over. She may find us."
        </p>
        <p>
          "I shall be delighted to meet Elizabeth," said John with
          his usual calm. "But it merely occurred to me that it
          wasn't so much that you belonged to me as that I belonged
          to you. I'm not sure that you're entirely a human being
          yet. And I don't think I shall trust you any longer with
          that wishing ring."
        </p>
        <p>
          She slipped it off very seriously and gave it to him.
        </p>
        <p>
          "I would only wish that you should have everything you
          wanted," she said. "I did, you know."
        </p>
        <p>
          He slid it back on the finger it was so much too large
          for. "I'll get you an honest-to-goodness one, too," he
          said. "But you'd better keep it. I <i>have</i> everything
          I wanted."
        </p>
        <p>
          He drew her head down and kissed her in demonstration of
          the fact.
        </p>
        <p>
          "But I do think it was the ring that did it," said little
          Joy.
        </p>
        <p>
          THE END
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p>
        <p>
          &nbsp;
        </p>
      </center>
    </center>









<pre>





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