Part 25 (2/2)

”Only one,” Mrs. Hewitt told her, with what was obviously a lightened heart. ”Dinner.”

”Just dinner for us three? Why, I can manage that easily,” said Joy confidently. ”At least--I hope I'll suit. I really can cook.”

”You blessed angel! Of course you'll suit!” said Mrs. Hewitt. ”I'm so glad. John _does_ like good meals.”

She moaned a little, rather as if it was a luxury, and turned cautiously over.

”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 pa.s.sing, John, that I never imagined you had sense enough to pick out anybody as satisfactory as Joy.”

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.

”See here, Joy, you mustn't do things like that,” he said abruptly.

”You're a guest, not a maid.”

She set her back against the closed door they had just emerged from and looked up at him.

”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--and--please!”

He put his hand under her chin and lifted her face to look at it keenly.

”Do you really like her so, child?” he said.

Joy hoped he would not feel her cheek burn under his touch.

”Yes,” she answered simply. ”And--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.”

But she did not say the last sentence aloud. She only laughed as the phrase presented itself to her.

”Now, what are you laughing at?” demanded John.

”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--my dinner. I'm going to plan it tonight, even if I don't cook it.”

He didn't seem angry at her--only amused.

”You plan a dinner--fairy princess!” he teased her, looking down at her picturesque little figure from his capable, broad-shouldered height.

”See if I can't!” said Joy defiantly.

And he saw.

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--and wore blue--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.

”Oh, come in, dear!” she cried. ”You're tired. Come to the fire a minute before you go upstairs.”

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