"You don't need to worry a bit," she consoled. "How many meals will she be gone?"
"Only one," Mrs. Hewitt told her, with what was obviously a lightened heart. "Dinner."
"Just dinner for us three? Why, I can manage that easily," said Joy confidently. "At least—I hope I'll suit. I really can cook."
"You blessed angel! Of course you'll suit!" said Mrs. Hewitt. "I'm so glad. John does like good meals."
She moaned a little, rather as if it was a luxury, and turned cautiously over.
"You don't have to stay with me any longer, children," she said. "The last responsibility is off my conscience. And I may state, in passing, John, that I never imagined you had sense enough to pick out anybody as satisfactory as Joy."
They both laughed a little, and then John said, abruptly, that he had to go soon, and swept Joy off with him. Outside the door he stopped short.
"See here, Joy, you mustn't do things like that," he said abruptly. "You're a guest, not a maid."
She set her back against the closed door they had just emerged from and looked up at him.
"Please let me go on playing," she begged him with a little break in her voice. "You know I never had any mother to speak of, any more than she had any daughter, and—and—please!"