"Well," announced Cynthia, still standing where she had stopped, and speaking with great positiveness, "there's only one thing to do now, and that is, find out who the old lady is and hunt her up!"
"I suppose I can find out her name from Father—if he remembers it—but what then? I can't go and scrape up an acquaintance with a perfectly strange person, and she may live in Timbuctoo!" objected Joyce.
"It's the only thing left, the 'last resort' as they say in stories," said Cynthia. "But, of course, you can do as you like. You're engineering this business!"
"Well, I will," conceded Joyce, not very hopefully, however. "I'll lead Father round to talking of her this evening, if I can, and see what comes of it."
Joyce was as good as her word. That evening when she and her father were seated cozily in the library, she studying, her father smoking and reading his paper, while her mother was temporarily out of the room, she began diplomatically:
"Do you know any real elderly people, Father?"
"Do you know any real elderly people, Father?" He looked up with a quizzical expression.
"Well, a few. Most people do, don't they? What do you inquire for, Duckie? Thinking of founding an old people's home?" he asked teasingly.