"
"You don't let _me_ 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."
"You're a very high-minded child," said his father soothingly.
"And there's charlotte russe for your dessert, Master Philip,"
whispered the waitress: at which Philip forgot his wrongs and
brightened visibly.
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.
"With nobody to hush them so he could make a literary criticism,"
Joy thought happily.
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.
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.
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