"Joyce, dear, here is Mr. Tremont to see you. Ah! I knew you were asleep. He rang twice, so I answered the bell."
Phil Tremont, pausing between the portières as Mrs. Boyd slipped back to Lucy, caught only a glimpse of Joyce's red dress trailing through the opposite doorway. The scattered letters on the rug bore witness to her hurried flight.
"Come on in to the fire, Phil," she called, through the partly closed door. "Poke it up and make yourself at home. I'll be out in a minute. I never dreamed of such joy as a caller on this dreadful day, or I should have been sitting up in state, waiting to receive you!"
The laughing reply he sent back brightened her spirits as if by magic. The next best thing to having one of her own family suddenly appear, was the pleasure of seeing the friend who had made one of their home circle so often and so intimately in the old Wigwam days which she had just been crying over. Hastily smoothing her rumpled hair, bathing her eyes and fluffing a powder-puff over her nose to take away the shine which her tear-sopped handkerchief had left on it, she came out to find him standing before the fire, looking down suspiciously at the scattered letters.
As he stepped forward with a hearty hand-clasp, she felt that the keen glance he gave her was a question, and answered as if he had spoken aloud.
"No, I wasn't asleep, as Mrs. Boyd thought. I was just having a good old-fashioned cry—a regular bawl! I don't get a chance to indulge in such an orgy of weeps often, but now the storm is over and it has cleared the atmosphere for another year or so."
"What is it, Joyce? Bad news from home? Is Jack worse?"
Phil's voice was so sympathetic, his real concern so evident, that Joyce could not trust herself to answer immediately. She stooped and began to pick up the letters.
"I—I'm afraid I boasted too soon about the storm being over. You'll have to talk about something else for awhile, or I might tune up again."
"All right," he answered, in a soothing tone, reaching down to help her gather up the letters. "That suits me, anyhow, for I came on purpose to bring you a rare bit of news concerning the Tremont family."