Joy, three
severe New England spinsters have already taken Gail Maddox for you.
Hurry!"
The suggestion was quite enough, as Phyllis may have known it would
be. Joy whisked into her place, which was opposite the double doors,
between Mrs. Hewitt and Phyllis, and taking her burden of white
chrysanthemums on one arm, proceeded to be as charming to her future
patients-in-law as she knew how.
Mrs. Hewitt and Phyllis cast glances of astonished admiration at
each other over her head. They neither of them had thought of Joy as
anything but a sweet child, or an affectionate child--a darling, but
shy and unused to the world. But she was managing her share of the
evening's pageant as if she had run a salon for twenty years. It did
not occur to them that the explanation was that she practically had
been brought up in one. She had been a part of the bi-weekly
receptions given to the small and great of the earth by Havenith the
poet ever since she was old enough to come into the parlors and
could be trusted not to cry or snatch cake.
"Good gracious, Joy, _where_ did you learn to drive people
four-in-hand this way?" breathed Phyllis admiringly, in a lull. "I
_know_, if I'd had to talk to two Miss Peabodys and three Miss
Brearleys and a stray Jones _all_ at once, at least five of
them would have hated me forever after. And you kept them going like
a juggler's balls!"
"They're not half as hard as the people at Grandfather's
afternoons," answered Joy.
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