"Oh, Ka-kee-ta!" Tessie stamped her satin slipper. "I wish I could lose Ka-kee-ta! I hate to have him always at my heels!"
"It's part of the price of being a queen," Joe said gently.
Tessie looked at him and frowned sulkily. "I'm not going to pay anything to-night!" she said sharply. "I shan't take Ka-kee-ta! Come," she held out her hand to Mr. Bill. "We'll go out the other way, and he'll never know but I'm in here. I just can't be bothered with him to-night. It's so stupid to have a bodyguard when I have you." She smiled at Mr. Bill.
"You bet it is!" stammered Mr. Bill, holding her fingers tight in his big paw.
Granny watched them slip away, and then she turned to Joe.
"She's just a foolish little girl," she said, as if she were thinking aloud.
"She'll make a grand woman," prophesied Joe, and he sighed, also.
"That may be." But Granny did not seem quite as sure as Joe that Tessie would make a grand woman. "What's going to change her, Joe?" she asked curiously. "What's going to change a silly little girl into a grand woman?"
"Love," Joe told her boldly and valiantly.