"Just for a little while?" she pleaded.
But her grandparents were firm.
"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."
It sounded true enough. Joy did not exactly know how to meet it.
Then she brightened up.
"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!"
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.
"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."
It was too tempting. Before she thought, Joy had spoken.
"If I were, would it be all right?" she asked.
Grandfather answered her, somewhat at length.
"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--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.
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