As Faith and Muriel ascended the stairs toward the cupola room, whither they were going for a half-hour review of spelling, the former asked: “Isn’t Joy a dear?”
“I love her,” Muriel said. Then she asked: “Are you sure she is real?”
Faith turned with puzzled eyes. “Real? Do you mean sincere?”
The island girl shook her head. “No, indeed, I know she is that! I mean that she looks like the gold and white fairy folk Uncle Barney used to tell about—and they always disappeared.”
Faith smiled. “Joy is our Dresden China girl, and, oh, Muriel, how I do hope she will grow strong. Her mother took her West last year believing the invigorating air of the Rockies would help her; but even now she hasn’t the strength that we who love her desire. The world has need of girls like our Joy,” she concluded.
Joy Kiersey, to the delight of her friends, appeared at the court next afternoon. Her soft, golden hair was like an aureole of sunshine about her head, for when she began to play she tossed her pale blue tam on a bench, where earlier she had flung her sweater-coat of the same color.
Joy and Catherine played singles for a while, the two being the experts of the team. Faith, Gladys and Muriel sat nearby watching with admiring eyes.
Time after time Joy was able to smash a ball over the net in such a manner that it fell dead before Catherine could return it.
“That’s our only hope,” Faith confided to Muriel, “that play of Joy’s! It’s a trick that her Harvard brother taught her and, watch as closely as we may, we cannot acquire it. Her brother, it seems, made Joy promise that she would not teach it to the other girls unless it might be in an emergency of some kind.”
“If Marianne Carnot and Adelaine Stuart are to play against Joy and Catherine,” Muriel said, her eyes glowing with enthusiasm, “they will have to be wonderful players to win.”