"
Joy looked up and saw a tiny elderly lady, quite a new one, in the
doorway.
"Good-by, Joy," he said in too low a voice for the old lady to hear.
"I'm glad we've met--I can't say I'm glad to have seen you, because
I haven't, you know. But thanks for a human five minutes--and keep
hoping."
He sprang lightly to his feet, opened the door, shut the door--was
gone, and Joy was alone in the dark again.
She smiled up at Aunt Lucilla unseeingly.
"Not even Lafayette could have been as kind as that," she said
proudly, and leaned happily against the wall again.
"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?"
Joy sprang up with a little laugh.
"Not a bit," she assured her. "I'm especially all right. Why,
yes--I'll come in if you want me, of course. The people don't matter."
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--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.
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