The Wishing-Ring Man | Page 5

It
must have been very much as if the sedate full-length of Mr. Shakspere,
over in the corner and not autographed, had opened its mouth and
begun to recite limericks.
"Why--why!" she said; and that was all she was capable of saying for
the moment. Joy, terrified herself at her deed, turned and fled.
What happened between Mrs. Jones and Grandfather she never knew,
and never asked. She never halted in her flight till she was safe in her
own little eyrie upstairs.
There she stopped before her dresser mirror, and looked at the flushed,
breathless girl in the glass.
"I wonder," Joy said aloud, "what really is the difference between me
and other people?"
She stared into the glass to see if she couldn't find out, leaning her
hands down on the dresser-top. But the pretty white-enamel-framed
mirror showed her just the same Joy as ever. Her heavy bronze-gold
braids swung forward, and their ends coiled down on the dresser-top.

Between them her little pointed face looked straight at her, blue-eyed,
red-lipped, and serious. Its owner eyed it perplexedly awhile, then gave
up the riddle.
"If you look like pictures and poetry you do, and that's all there is to it.
I suppose living with Grandfather's had an effect on me... I wonder..."
Joy still stared steadily into the glass--"I wonder if having somebody in
love with me would make a difference. It's the only thing Grandfather's
ever said he was willing to have happen to me. He's always talking
about 'I would give you up willingly to the first breath of true love....'
But there's never anybody comes to his parties you could love with a
pair of tongs... I wonder if he would? It would have to be love at first
sight, too, I suppose. He doesn't think much of any other kind of love....
But I'd be dreadfully frightened of him.... I hope he'd have blond curly
hair!"
She lifted herself from her leaning position, and went and curled up on
the side of the bed, the better to think.
"There's no use wondering about a lover," she decided. "Lovers never
come to hear Grandfather read, not unless they come in pairs to get out
of the rain, like the animals in the ark.... Anyway I don't think I'd want
the one today, even if he hadn't been a pair. But a nice fresh one that
didn't belong to anybody else...."
Grandmother, released at last from finding out what people wanted in
their tea, and giving it to them, hurried into the room at this point, and
was very much relieved to find Joy perfectly well to all appearances,
and sitting quietly on the side of the bed gazing off into space.
"Darling, were you ill?" she panted, sitting down by her. "Your
grandfather was quite disturbed over it, and I was terribly frightened.
We knew something must have happened. What was it, lambie? Where
do you feel badly?"
Joy looked away from the wall, at her grandmother's kind, anxious,
wrinkled little face under the lace lappets. Grandfather liked
Grandmother to wear caps, so she did it; also fichus and full-skirted

silks, whether such were in fashion or no.
"I didn't feel ill one bit," explained Joy deliberately. "Only I'm tired of
being a decoration. I want to be like other people... I don't want to wear
any more clothes like paintings, or ever have any more poetry written
to me. I--oh, Grandmother, everything's going on and going on, and
none of it's happening to me!" She looked at her grandmother
appealingly. "And it feels as if it wouldn't ever!"
But Grandmother didn't seem to understand a bit. And yet she must
have been young once--wasn't there that poem of Grandfather's, "To
Myrtilla at Seventeen," to prove it? The one beginning "Sweetheart,
whose shadowed hair!" Why, he must have--yes, he spoke of it in the
poem--Grandfather must have held Grandmother's hand, like the
Dicky-lover today, and even kissed her because he wanted to, not
because it was nine in the morning or ten at night. Those were the times
he kissed her now. Of one thing Joy was certain, Grandmother had
never told Grandfather he must stop. She wouldn't have dared.
"Dear, would you like a hot-water bottle, and your supper in bed?"
inquired Grandmother, breaking in on these meditations.... Oh, it was a
long time since Grandmother had been Myrtilla at seventeen! Joy
looked at her wistfully once more.
"No, thank you, Grandmother," she said decidedly. "I feel very well,
thank you. I'll be down to supper as soon as I've changed my frock."
She felt as if getting off the actual clothes that were in the poem would
be escaping from it a little, and perhaps drawing a little nearer the
having of real things happen