Phyllis Harrington looked thoughtfully after her. There was something about Joy Havenith that always made people eager to do pleasant things for her, and watch her enjoying them. She did get so much pleasure out of life whenever it let her.
"It won't be my fault," said Phyllis, coming to a determination, "if that child doesn't get a chance at the garden and the moon, and the men, too!"
When Phyllis made up her mind it generally stayed made. Accordingly, she went to the reading that night, and afterwards made herself as lovely to the Haveniths as she knew how, which was a good deal. She asked them to have tea with her the next day, and continued to be lovely. She also managed to give them a very fair idea of everything they might be supposed to need to know about the Harrington family. When she had finished they had discovered several mutual friends, a meeting with Mr. Harrington's late mother abroad, the genealogies of both Allan and Phyllis, and even a common ancestor somewhere in the seventeen-nineties on Allan's side. The Haveniths thought it had all just transpired, but Phyllis had really been tactfully offering references. After about a week of pleasant friendship Phyllis produced her invitation.
She wanted to take Joy home with her for the last part of September and the first part of October. Joy was wild with delight at the idea; but her grandparents would not let her go. They never had before, and it didn't occur to them that they could now.
"Just for a little while?" she pleaded.
But her grandparents were firm.
"Under no circumstances could we let you go away from us, dear," said her grandfather firmly. "I am an old man, and the time will come soon enough when I shall be with you no longer. If you loved me, you would not ask it. When your lover comes it will be time enough."
It sounded true enough. Joy did not exactly know how to meet it. Then she brightened up.
"If you let me go for a little while, I'm sure I'd miss you dreadfully, and love you more than ever. I'm sure I would!"
But Grandfather didn't intend to part with his little girl on any such premise as that, and Grandmother was sure something dreadful would happen if she was allowed to go.