"It wasn't so much my behavior after I was wheeled home," said Philip's father mournfully, "as it was my getting so outrageously drunk on two glasses of beer. That was the final straw. Why couldn't he have made it several quarts of brandy, or even knockout drops?"

"I hope you don't want an innocent child of that age to know about knockout drops!" said Clarence Rutherford, the ubiquitous.

"Well, there's something wrong with his environment," said Allan.

"We are his environment," Phyllis reminded him. "As far as I know we are rather nice people."

The Harringtons, John Hewitt, with Gail and her cousin, not to speak of Joy, were enjoying an unseasonably hot day in the Harrington garden. They had all been playing tennis, and now everybody was sitting or lying about, getting rested. The trees kept the morning sun from being too much of a nuisance, and there was a tray with lemonade, and sweet biscuits which were unquestionably going to ruin everybody's luncheon appetite.

"What that child needs," answered his father, taking another glass of lemonade and the remaining biscuits, "is young life-companions his own age."

They had all been racking their brains to think of a punishment that would fit Philip's crime, or at least some warning that would bring it home to him. He had been led by Viola, subdued and courteous, to tell Miss Addison that he had deceived her. He did, very carefully.

"But it might of been my father," he explained as he ended. "Oughtn't we to be glad that it wasn't my father, Miss Addison?"

Miss Addison, quite nonplused by this unexpected moral turn to the conversation, had acknowledged defeat, and fed Philip largely. He had a very good time, apparently, for he grieved to Viola all the way home over Angela's missing such a pleasant afternoon. When he returned he flung himself on Allan.

"Oh, Father, please let Angela go, too, next time I go 'pologizing!" he implored. "There were such nice little cakes—just the kind Mother lets her eat!"

Allan shook his head despairingly.

"Please remove him, Viola," he said. "I want to think."

Not only he, but Phyllis and John, had spent a day thinking. No one had, as yet, reached any conclusion at all.

"It's all very well for you to be carefree," he said now to John, who was laughing like the others. "It isn't up to you to see that the young idea shoots straight."

John's face remained quite cheerful.

"Well, you see, I have Joy's manners and morals to look after," he said, glancing across at her in a friendly way. "That's enough for one man."

Joy curled on the warm grass, laughed lazily. She was too pleasantly tired from tennis to answer. She only curled her feet under her and burrowed into the grass a little more, like a happy kitten.

It didn't seem as if anything ever need interrupt her happiness. And as Phyllis had had the happy thought of ordering luncheon brought out to where they were, there seemed no reason why they should ever move. There was a feeling of unchangingness about the wonderfully holding summer weather, and the general lazy routine, that was as delightful as it was illusive. For the very next day things began to happen.

They were just finishing breakfast when a telegram came.

"I suppose it's from the De Guenthers, telling us which train to meet," Phyllis said carelessly, as she opened it.... "Oh!"

"What is it, dear?" asked Allan at her exclamation of distress.

She handed him the telegram.

"Isabel suddenly ill with inflammatory rheumatism. Fear it may affect heart. Can you come on?"

"They're the nearest thing either of us has to relatives," Phyllis explained to Joy. "Inflammatory rheumatism! Oh, Allan, we ought to go."

She looked at him across the table, her blue eyes distressed and wide.

"Of course you shall go, my dearest," Allan told her gently, while Joy wondered what it would be like to have some one speak to her in that tone. The Harringtons were so careless and joyous in their relations with each other, so like a light-hearted, casually intimate brother and sister, that it was only when they were moved, as now, that their real feelings were apparent.

Joy looked off and out the window, and lost herself in a day-dream, her hand, as usual, mechanically feeling for the rough carving of John's ring.

"To be in John's house, close to him, like this, and to have him speak to me so—wouldn't it be wonderful?" she thought, with a warm lift of her heart at even the vision of it. She forgot the people about her for a little, and pictured it to herself.

She had only seen two rooms of the Hewitt house, and that when they were dressed out of all homelikeness, because of the reception. But she could think how they would look, with just John Hewitt and herself going up and down them. They would be happy, too, in this light-hearted fashion—so happy that they laughed at little things. They would not talk much about loving each other. But they would belong to each other, and they would know it. Each of them would always be there for the other, and know it. They would sit by the wood fire in the dusk....

"Now to set my house in order," said Phyllis, rising from the table. "You said the two train, Allan? All right—I can easily be ready for that, or before, if you like."

She rang for Lily-Anna, who appeared, smiling and comfortable as ever.

"Mr. Harrington and I are going off for some days—perhaps longer, Lily-Anna," Phyllis explained. "I shall have to leave the children with you and Viola. Mrs. De Guenther is very ill."

Lily-Anna seemed used to this sort of thing happening, and said she could manage perfectly well. Indeed, Viola was beamingly amiable over the prospect, when summoned and told. She volunteered to do any mending and packing necessary on the spot.

"How beautifully they take it!" marveled Joy when the servants had gone again, full of shining assurances that all would be well.

"You may well say so!" said Phyllis, lifting her eyebrows. "Their rapture at getting the children to themselves is almost indecent. It's all very well to have such attractive infants, but I sometimes look sadly back to the days when Lily-Anna loved me for myself alone. And now about you."

"Me?" said Joy in surprise. She had not supposed there was any question about her.

"You," answered Phyllis decisively. "Here is where I am given a chance of escape from making a lifelong enemy of your future mother-in-law." She crossed to the telephone as she spoke, and got Mrs. Hewitt's number. "This is Phyllis Harrington," Joy heard her say. "I called up to say that I am yielding in our struggle for Joy's person. Allan and I have to go away this afternoon. We should love to have her stay here and chaperone Philip and Angela, but it seems a waste. Would you like to have her?"

Sounds of fervent acceptance were evidently pouring over the wire, for Phyllis smiled as she listened.

"She not only wants you," she transmitted to Joy, "but she says that she'll take no chances on our changing our minds, and is coming for you in an hour, whether we go or not. She says to tell you that she's taking you shopping first.... You know, we're to have her back when we return," she continued firmly to the telephone. "We saw her first."

She hung up the receiver and swept Joy off upstairs with her while she packed.

"You know, we may never get you again," she warned. "I'm taking a fearful chance in letting you escape this way. You have to come back, remember, my child."

"Indeed I will come back," Joy promised fervently.

It seemed so strange that all these people should so completely have made her one of themselves, even to the point of wanting to keep her in their homes.

"You are all so good to me!" she said.

"You are exceedingly lovable," explained Phyllis matter-of-factly. "In fact, Clarence remarked the last time I saw him that you had the most unusual kind of charm he had ever seen. He said you were like a sorceress brought up in a nunnery. While I think of it, Joy dear, Clarence and Gail are two of the most confirmed head-hunters I know. They ought to marry each other and keep it in the family, but they won't. I'm not worried about anything Gail can do, but do please keep your fingers crossed when Clarence drops carelessly in. And when he starts discussing your souls turn the conversation to the village water-supply or something as interesting."

Joy smiled a little wistfully.

"John doesn't seem to mind," she said. Then she laughed outright. "Phyllis, I've seen every one of Clarence's tricks all my life. He's the only type I'm accustomed to: it's the John and Allan type I don't know."

"You certainly are a surprise to me," said Phyllis, busily folding a flesh-colored Georgette waist, and laying it in a tray with tissue-paper in its sleeves. "I don't seem to be able to teach you much, which is a good thing. Now you'd better let me help you pack up enough for a week, for Mrs. Hewitt is due fairly soon."

Joy declined to take any of Phyllis' much-needed time, and went off to fill her suitcase. It was not until she had put in almost everything she intended to take that she thought of the wishing ring again. She looked down at the heavy Oriental carving with what was almost terror. She had wished for something on it, and once more her wish had come true. She was going over to be in the house with John, to see him whenever he was there, to have him—yes, he would have to pretend, at least, that they were lovers, because of his mother. She had as nearly what she had wished for as it was possible for a ring to manage.

"I almost feel as if I had made that poor old lady have the rheumatism," she thought with a thrill of fear. Then she pulled herself up—that was nonsense.

"But anyway," Joy told the ring severely, "I won't touch you when I make wishes after this. I might wish for something in a hurry, and be terribly sorry afterwards."

But one thing she did wish then, deliberately. She sat back on her heels and clasped her fingers over the heavy carving of it. "Please, dear wishing ring, let John be in love with me!" she begged. The next moment she was scarlet at her own foolishness. The ring couldn't do that, if it had belonged to Aladdin himself.

So she went on packing. She was a little afraid and excited, going off to live in the very house with John, but she couldn't help being a little glad. She would see him for hours and hours every day.

"And oh, dear ring," she whispered, forgetting that she had promised not to wish any more, "don't let him get tired of having me around!"

She was not quite done when she heard the impatient wail of Mrs. Hewitt's horn. She stuffed the last things into the heavy suitcase and ran down, dragging it after her.

Phyllis went out to the car with her, kissing her good-by.

"Now mind, this is only a loan," she told Mrs. Hewitt.

"Nothing of the sort," retorted Mrs. Hewitt with an air of certainty. "Good-by, my dear. Give my love to Mrs. De Guenther. Perhaps when you get back I may give an afternoon tea and allow you to see Joy for a few minutes."

Phyllis laughed, and patted Mrs. Hewitt's gloved hand where it lay on the steering-wheel.

"Use our place all you like, as usual," she said in sole reply, "and don't forget to miss me."

"That's one of the loveliest girls that ever lived," said Mrs. Hewitt as they sped away. "Anybody but Phyllis I would begrudge you to. Oh, my dear, we're going to have the best time!"

Joy squeezed the hand that should have been, but wasn't, helping the other hand steer. Mrs. Hewitt was so adorably a young girl inside her white-haired stateliness!

"We're going to the next village to buy materials," she told Joy blithely, "and then we're going home to make them up, or I am. It won't hurt to get a bit of the trousseau under way, and you know I haven't sewed a thing for my daughter for thirty-four years—not since the wretched child turned out to be John, and I had to take all the pink ribbons out and put in blue!"

Mrs. Hewitt's inconsequent good spirits, somehow, took away some of the dread with which Joy had been looking forward to her sojourn in John's house. She allowed herself to be motored over to the next town, where there was fairly good shopping, and went obediently into the stores. It was not until she saw the lady ordering down for inspection bolts of crÊpe de Chine and wash satin and glove silk in whites and pinks and flesh-colors, that the full inwardness of the thing dawned on her. For evidently Mrs. Hewitt had every intention of paying for all this opulence, and Joy didn't quite see what to do about it. Nor did the pocket-money her grandfather had given her when she left him warrant her paying for the things herself, even if she used it all.

"Please don't get these things," she whispered when she found a chance. "I—I think I oughtn't to."

"Oughtn't to, indeed," replied Mrs. Hewitt coolly. "'Nobody asked you, sir, she said!' I'm getting them myself. I may be intending to make up a set of wash-satin blankets for the Harrington bulldog for all you know. I don't think he'd be surprised—they treat him like a long-lost relative now. Now be sensible, darling. Do you think valenciennes or filet would be better to trim the blankets? Or do you like these lace and organdy motifs? They'd look charming on a black bulldog."

Joy laughed in spite of herself.

"There's no doing anything with you," she said.

"Not a thing!" said the triumphant spoiled child whom the world took for an elderly lady. "Now we'll get down to business. Would you rather have crÊpe or satin for camisoles? Half of each would be a good plan, I think, if you have no choice."

There wasn't any doing anything with Mrs. Hewitt. She was having a gorgeous time, and she carried Joy along with her till the girl was choosing pink and white silks and satins, and patterns to make them by, with as much enthusiasm as if no day of reckoning loomed up, three and a half weeks away.

There was no way out. Of course, she would leave the things behind. The thought gave her a pang already, for Joy had been dressed by her grandfather's ideas only as far as frocks went. Her grandmother had seen to everything else, and was devoted to a durable material known as longcloth, which one buys by the bolt and uses forever.

But they sped merrily home, after a festive luncheon, with about forty dollars' worth of silk and lace and ribbon aboard, not to speak of patterns, and a blue muslin frock which was a bargain and would just fit Joy, and which she had invested in herself.

"Oh what a tangled web we weave
When first we practise to deceive!"

Joy thought of that quotation so often now that she was beginning to feel it was her favorite verse. But she touched the big parcel with a small, appreciative foot, and remembered that the blue frock, at least, would be saved out of the wreck, and that John liked blue.

Mrs. Hewitt showed her her bedroom when they got back, and left her to take a nap. But she did not want to rest. She lay obediently against the pillows and stared out the window at a great, vivid maple tree, and felt very much like staying awake for the rest of her natural life.

"How on earth was I to know that mothers-in-law were like this?" she demanded of herself indignantly. "All the ones I ever heard about made your life a misery."

It is rather calming to remember that you really couldn't have foreseen what is happening to you. So Joy presently rose happily, smoothed her hair and tidied herself generally, and came sedately down the stairs, prepared to go on playing her part. Only it was getting to feel more like a reality than a pretense. The other life, the one she would go back to, seemed the dream now.

"John will be here soon," Mrs. Hewitt greeted her. "It will be a surprise to him: you know, he hasn't an idea you are here. I wouldn't tell him what Phyllis said."

Joy dimpled.

"Do you suppose he'll mind?" she ventured.

"Oh, I think he'll bear up," said Mrs. Hewitt amiably. "Come here, Joy; I've cut out a half-dozen of the silk ones already. Do you know how to do them? They're just a straight piece—see——"

Joy knelt down by her, absorbed in the pretty thing and in seeing how to make it. The day was chillier than any had yet been, and a fire had been built in the deep fireplace of the living-room. Mrs. Hewitt was sitting near it, with the pretty scraps of silk and lace all over her lap, and an ever-widening circle of cut-out garments around her.

"We can do the most of these by hand," she mused. "Indeed, we shouldn't do them any other way."

Joy rooted sewing things out of a basket near by and sat down just where she was, between Mrs. Hewitt and the large, fatherly Maltese cat who occupied a wonted cushion on the other side of the fireplace. And so John found her when he came in. The lamp had just been lighted, and its soft rays shone on Joy's bronze head and down-bent, intent little face. She had on a little white apron that Mrs. Hewitt had fastened around her waist, and she was sewing hard.

Before Joy heard John come in she felt him. No matter how tired he was, there was always about John an atmosphere of well-being and sunniness, of "all's right with the world," that made faces turn to him instinctively when he stood in a doorway. But Joy did not raise her eyes to look at him, nor did she move.

His mother rose and came over to greet him. Joy did not hear her whisper: "The child feels a little shy. She'll be more at ease now you've come."

John came swiftly over to where she sat on the floor, very still, with her hands flying, and her eyes on her work.

"Why, Joy dear, this is a lovely thing that I didn't expect," he said gently. "Welcome—home!"

He smiled down at her and held out his hands to help her up. Quite unsuspectingly, she pushed her work into the pocket along the hem of her sewing-apron and laid her hands in his, and he drew her easily to her feet. But, instead of releasing her then, he drew her closer—and kissed her, quite as calmly as he had his mother a moment before.... No, not quite as calmly. Joy felt his arms close around her, as if he was glad to have her in his hold.

"Let me go," she said in too low a voice for Mrs. Hewitt to hear.

"Who has drawn the wine must drink it," he told her in the same low voice. He went on, still softly, but more seriously, "My child, this sort of thing is necessary, if you want Mother to be satisfied while you are here. It's—a courtesy to your hostess. I promise to do no more of it than is necessary, as it seems to trouble you so. But—don't you see?"

He released her, and she stepped away.

"I—see," she answered him a little uncertainly. "Th—thank you.... I—I couldn't help coming, John."

Then she fled upstairs to dress for dinner.

She puzzled all the time she was dressing. There was no use talking—his mother needn't be amused by such things. She would get on perfectly well without seeing them. John might think he was doing it as a sacred duty—in spite of her adoration of him it did not impress Joy that way.... There were men who kissed you just because you were a girl, if you let them; Clarence was that kind, according to all accounts. But—John! He was the best, kindest, noblest man she had ever known. Every one seemed to have the same feelings about him that she had. Even when Clarence had sneered at him he had only been able to call him a "reliable citizen."... And yet—he seemed to want to kiss her! He liked it.

"Of course," said Joy to herself, with a beating heart beneath the wisdom of Aunt Lucilla, "the answer is that he probably doesn't know it. Men don't ever seem to know things about themselves. But I must remember that it's no sign he likes me."

But it was quite true that it was going to have to continue. It had dawned on Joy that her will was no match for that of the Hewitt family. But it was a very kindly will. She smiled a little, irrepressibly, as she clasped her girdle—she was wearing one of the old picture dresses—and went downstairs. For even if you are a little impostor who has captured a five-weeks' lover by means of a wishing ring, unlimited things to wear are nice, and having the man you are in love with want to pet you is nice, too!

At the top of the stairs a thought struck her. Joy's thoughts had a way of arriving suddenly. She had set out to be happy. Very well!

"I don't see why I shouldn't be engaged to the limit!" she thought daringly. "I—don't—see—why I shouldn't! ... for just this little while—just this one little while out of my life before I go back to the shadows! ... I don't care if I am bad! I don't care if I am unmaidenly! I'll be as happy as ever I can. They'll think I'm very dreadful, anyway, all of them, when they know all about me!"

She swept on down the stairs, head up, cheeks flaming.

And so, when she came upon John, waiting her courteously at the stair-foot, she did just exactly what in her heart she desired to do. She stood on the step above him and deliberately laid both little white hands on his shoulders and smiled into his eyes.

"I am so glad I'm here with you," she said, looking at him with no attempt to hide the love she felt for him. "Are you glad to have your sweetheart in the house—for a little while? Say so—please, dear!"

He laughed light-heartedly, and his eyes shone.

"A little while?" he answered gaily. "I can stand a lot more of you than that, kiddie.... Come, now, Mother's waiting. Or shall I lift you down from the step? ... I always seem to want to lift you about, somehow, you're so little and light—such a little princess:"

He set his hands about her waist, but she slipped from him, laughing excitedly.

"I believe you think I'm just a doll somebody gave you to play with!" she told him with a certain sweet mockery that was hers sometimes.... "Come, now, Mother's waiting!"

She ran down the hall, evading his grasp, and laughing back at him over her shoulder, to Mrs. Hewitt and safety.

"Come, children, dinner will be cold," said Mrs. Hewitt obliviously.

"Coming, Mother dear!" answered Joy.