Nothing more was said about it for the two weeks that led to Grandfather's next Afternoon. Joy was delighted to find that her Muse wasn't asked for, and her grandparents may have been rather pleased at her continuing to behave as she always had, instead of saying curious things about wanting to be like other people. She continued to wear her picture-frocks and do as she was told. Her own feelings were that she had been naughty, but that she was rather glad of it.
And so it was that when the reception day came around again, Joy helped with the sandwiches and sliced the lemons and piled up the little cakes and dressed herself prettily—and then went and hid at the foot of the back stairs, with Aunt Lucilla for a companion.
"I hope I shall behave if somebody finds me, and tells me what a privilege it is to be me," said Joy; "but I doubt it. Because it isn't. It isn't one bit."
"What isn't?" demanded a man's voice interestedly.
CHAPTER TWO
BY GRACE OF THE WISHING RING
Joy turned her head to look. She was quite sure that the speaker couldn't see her very well, but she could see him, or the top of him, perfectly, because he was standing in the crack of a door that gave on to the back hall; a door few people remembered existed, as a picture hung on it, and it gave no impression of ever being used. He was young and broad-shouldered and sure-looking, little as she could see of him. She could see his face as far down as the eyes, and that was all. They were pleasant, steel-colored eyes, very amused and direct, and his hair, in the light of the old-fashioned chandelier behind him, glittered, fair and a little curlier than he evidently approved of.
He slipped entirely through the door; at the same moment Joy blew out the candle she had been holding up to Aunt Lucilla. Then she laughed, a little shy, pretty laugh. She wished she could light it again, to look at him, but she remembered that if she did that he might think she did want to look at him.
"I'm so glad you've come!" she almost said. He seemed like some one she had been waiting for a long while, some way, instead of the usual stranger you had to get used to. There was such a breath of freshness and courage and cheer in just the few words he had spoken and the little laugh they were borne on, that Joy felt irrationally what a nice world it was. Then she remembered to reply to what he had said.
"It isn't a privilege, being me," she explained from her shadows.