Quite a close funeral, she explained to
me; the remains was a dear friend!"
Joy smiled down on Mrs. Hewitt like a Rossetti angel.
"You don't need to worry a bit," she consoled. "How many meals will
she be gone?"
"Only one," Mrs. Hewitt told her, with what was obviously a
lightened heart. "Dinner."
"Just dinner for us three? Why, I can manage that easily," said Joy
confidently. "At least--I hope I'll suit. I really can cook."
"You blessed angel! Of course you'll suit!" said Mrs. Hewitt. "I'm
so glad. John _does_ like good meals."
She moaned a little, rather as if it was a luxury, and turned
cautiously over.
"You don't have to stay with me any longer, children," she said.
"The last responsibility is off my conscience. And I may state, in
passing, John, that I never imagined you had sense enough to pick
out anybody as satisfactory as Joy."
They both laughed a little, and then John said, abruptly, that he
had to go soon, and swept Joy off with him. Outside the door he
stopped short.
"See here, Joy, you mustn't do things like that," he said abruptly.
"You're a guest, not a maid."
She set her back against the closed door they had just emerged from
and looked up at him.
"Please let me go on playing," she begged him with a little break in
her voice. "You know I never had any mother to speak of, any more
than she had any daughter, and--and--please!"
He put his hand under her chin and lifted her face to look at it keenly.
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