"Oh!" said Joy. "Well, I haven't the technique—would you?"
But Nora came in with the soup just then without having been rung for, having evidently been hovering sympathetically near.
"Pardon me, Doctor, but the bell is connected up," she breathed. "I hooked it up myself as soon as Mrs. Hewitt gave Miss Havenith the housekeeping."
It had evidently been a sore point with Nora—and, if the truth were told, with John, who had an orderly mind. Although he adored his flyaway, irresponsible mother, it was in spite of her ways and not because of them.
"Do you think you are apt to get excited and step on the bell?" he asked Joy.
She shook her head.
"I like things the way they're planned," she confessed. "They go along more easily."
"I suppose," he meditated aloud, "you might even put a man's collars in the same place twice running."
"Where else?" demanded Joy, who was so thoughtful of such things that she was even intrusted with certain duties of the sort for Grandfather.
"Well, Mother hasn't repeated herself for twenty-eight years," said John a little wistfully. "She says she doesn't intend to get in a rut, nor let me."