Nobody knew all that Joan felt, except Joan herself; but Mittie had seen
quite enough to have made her act kindly and unselfishly.
Joan's hopes had grown faint when she left the breakfast-table and went
upstairs.
Mrs. Wills spent most of her time in her bedroom, sometimes hobbling
across to a small sitting-room on the same floor. She was too infirm to
come downstairs.
"Eh? What is it? I don't understand!"
The old lady was growing deaf, and when she objected to what was being
said, she would become doubly deaf. Like her younger granddaughter, she
had always been accustomed to getting her own way.
[Sidenote: "Your Turn now!"]
"You want to do--what?" as Joan tried to explain. "I wish you would
speak more clearly, my dear, and not put your lips together when you
talk. Mrs. Ferris! Yes, of course I know Mrs. Ferris. I knew her long
before _you_ came here. She wants you for the day? Well, one of you can
go, and the other must stay with me. You've got to take turns. That is
only reasonable. Mittie went last time, so it is your turn now."
But Mittie never cared about turns.
"I suppose you couldn't for once--just once, Grannie, dear--spare us
both together?"
Joan said this with such a sinking of heart that, had the old lady known
it, she would surely have yielded. A sick fear had come over the girl
lest Fred might think that she was staying away on purpose--because she
did not want to see him.
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