This letter put Joan on her mettle. "Pat, I'm going to begin as soon as we've settled," she declared, and her wet eyes shone. "Aunt Dorrie is quite right." The girls finally secured four pretty, sunny rooms overlooking the lake, and reverently selected the furniture for them. "Let's get things artistic," Patricia wisely explained, "we'll make the place unique and then"--for Patricia always left, if possible, a way open for retreat--"if we should ever want to dispose of it, we'd have a good market." But as the days passed it looked as if the venture were turning out better than one could have hoped. Joan had never felt so important in her life, and, to her surprise, developed possibilities never suspected before. She prepared for Patricia's homecomings with the keenest delight. The cozy, charming little dinners, the evenings by the open fire--for they had selected the rooms largely on account of the fireplace--or the occasional theatre or concert grew in delight. Patricia was the merriest of comrades, the most appreciative of partners. She also, to her own surprise, became deeply interested in her work and, while the hours and confinement sometimes irritated her, her field of invention was wide enough to employ her real talent, and her success was assured from the first. And when things were running smoothly and there were hours too empty for comfort in the lonely day, Joan discovered a professor of music who gave her much encouragement and some good advice. After this interview she wrote to Doris more frankly than she had done for a long time. She explained her financial situation and quite simply asked for help: It's very expensive learning _not_ to be a fool, Aunt Doris. I have proved that. I am very serious now and Chicago, with Pat, is better for me than New York with Sylvia. What I really want is to prove myself a bit before I come back to you. I'm sorry about this winter, dear, but a year more and I will be able to come to you not _on_ my shield, I hope, but with it in fairly good condition. "I think you ought to make her keep her promise about this winter," Nancy quivered; "she is always upsetting things." "Why, my little Nan!" Doris drew the girl to her. Oddly enough, she felt as if Nancy was all that she was ever to have. Never before had Joan sounded so determined. "Instead," Doris comforted, "I am going to help Joan prove herself and you and I, little girl, will go up to town and have a very happy, a very wonderful winter, and next summer, if Joan does not come to us, we will go to her. I think we all see things very clearly now." Nancy was not so sure of this but she, like Joan and Patricia, had felt the lash upon her back and was chafing at delay. Mary worked early and late to hasten the departure from The Gap. Always in Mary's consciousness was that threatening old woman on Thunder Peak.