"We aim to please," said Joy demurely. "But I have to explain that a lot, it seems to me. I had it out with Clarence Rutherford only a day or so ago."
"Oh, you did?" considered John. "Well—don't try to please too hard. Remember that you are supposed to please me; but you don't have to extend your efforts beyond my family circle."
He was only half in earnest, but he was in earnest at least half. She wondered just what he meant for a moment, then it occurred to her that he meant Clarence, no less. She was on the verge of saying comfortingly:
"Clarence is just trying to make me fall in love with him. He doesn't count a bit."
But she stopped herself, remembering that Aunt Lucilla would never have said such an unwise thing, let alone Gail.
"I must go now and see how your mother is, as soon as we are through," she told him instead.
She found Mrs. Hewitt surrounded by more hot-water bottles than she had ever thought existed, and reduced to the point where she was nearly willing to confess to neuritis.
"I have pains all over me, child," she announced, "and as long as you are here I shall continue to describe them, so you'd better run. And if you tell John it's neuritis I shall probably take you over to Phyllis' fountain and drown you the first day I'm up. It will be an annoyingly chilly death if the weather keeps on as it is now——"
She stopped in order to give a little wriggle and a little moan, and saw John standing in the doorway.
"How's the neuritis, Mother?" he inquired sympathetically.