"I am very much relieved."
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.
"I think I'm all right," she said.
"You were overtired," said Grandmother solicitously--Grandmother,
who had cut all the sandwiches, which Joy had only buttered! "The
day's been oppressive."
So she passed Joy some more of the walnut sandwiches, and smiled to
see that they were being eaten.
"But I am not satisfied, yet," said Grandfather. If Grandfather had
only let well enough--and young girls' whimsies--alone, Joy wouldn't
have been tempted. "What made you rush out that way, Joy--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."
Joy threw her head back defiantly. She knew that if Grandmother
didn't understand her appeal, certainly Grandfather wouldn't.
"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_ had a poem!"
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.
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