"No, I can't come in. It's at
least four o'clock, and I have to be up at seven tomorrow. I'll drop
in some time in the morning--you won't have a chance to miss me."
He said good-night to them all, and went down from the porch. They
could hear him whistling "With Strephon for Your Foe" joyously down
the path, and, more dimly, down the road that led to his house.
"There goes, I should say, a fairly happy man," remarked Allan to
the world at large. "Now, Joy, if any one asked you, what would you
say made him so contented with life?"
Joy liked Allan's brotherly teasing as a rule, but tonight it seemed
as if she could not answer him, or anybody. She did, not feel as if
she could talk any more, and looked appealingly at Phyllis.
"She's dead to the world, Allan," Phyllis interposed. "And if we
stay down here talking those imps of ours are going to wake up and
demand tribute."
"Great Scott, they are!" said Allan, "and the buns and stuff you
held Mrs. Hewitt up for are in the bottom of the car, locked up in
the garage--where _you_ wanted to be."
"Which is providential," said the children's mother thankfully.
"It's an alibi. They can't get any till tomorrow, no matter how much
we want to give them any."
So they tiptoed up the stairs. Joy turned off into her own room, but
she heard enough to know that no soft-footedness had availed. She
heard Philip's clear, deliberate little voice demanding, "How much
party did you bring me home, Mother?" and the hopeful patter of
Angela's feet.
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