"Do you know," she told him confidentially, "I _did_ want a lover, back there at home. A real one, I mean. I saw a girl with one, and you could tell there wasn't anything on earth so nice as being lovers. But this is lots better--all the nice part of it and none of the stupid part--for I suppose they were going to be married." John looked at her curiously. "Joy, did you never have a friend of your own age, or any companions but those old people of yours?" She shook her head, smiling. "Never any." "That accounts for you, I suppose," said he with a sigh, which puzzled Joy very much. She had accepted as gospel John's order not to be afraid of him; and she was talking to him as if he were confidant, father and sister, all in one. That it might be treatment a very attractive man wasn't used to never dawned on her, because she had nothing to check up by. "Do I need accounting for?" she inquired, with another of the sidelong smiling glances he approved of. She really wanted to know, but she was so contented with life as it was then that she did not feel particularly distressed over it. Her trial lover took another look at her and decided that perhaps she didn't need to be accounted for, after all. She was wearing the little golden-brown suit she clung to, with its little cap to match, and her cheeks were flushed with the heat of that September day. It was as interesting to watch her develop one and another little way, he decided, as it would have been to observe an intelligent child. That there was some slight difference in his mind between her and a bona fide intelligent child was proved by that fact that he would just as lief that Philip had not interrupted them just then: though the interruption was done with all Philip's natural grace. He was mussed and rather dusty, and the front of his blue Oliver Twist suit bore an unmistakable paw-mark on its bosom. "John," he said earnestly, "if you don't hurry, Foxy will have been alone quite a while. Mother says I mustn't stay wiv him any longer, and he doesn't seem to think brakemen is people a bit." Joy gave a little gurgle of laughter. It reminded her of Mr. James Arthur Gosport and how he loved brakemen. How shocked he would have been at the pedigreed Foxy! She began to tell John about it, then stopped herself. "But you want to go and sit with the dog," she said, as they laughed over it; for Philip was standing, silent and reproachful, till John should do his duty by the beloved animal. "I don't want to a bit," said John frankly, "but I suppose my reputation with Foxy demands it." He rose reluctantly, quoting from the "Bab Ballads": "_My own convenience counts as_ nil: _It is my duty, and I will!_"