Joan fought her way quite rudely out of this embrace, feeling suffocated. Her knees had begun to tremble. "Are--are we visiting you!" she quavered, piteously putting off the inevitable. The lady laughed, a laugh as plump and soft and cushiony as the rest of her. "There, now, Dickie; I don't believe you've had the nerve to tell her yet!" She rustled over and stood beside the Major, slightly in front of him, so that she could lean back archly against his shoulder; a position which seemed to bring an arm automatically into position about her waist. "Dollykins," said Richard Darcy, clearing his throat and not quite meeting the girl's wide gaze, "this is my--my graduation gift to you. Your new mamma!" CHAPTER V Joan was alone at last in such a bed as she had never occupied in her life, even in her most luxurious games of Pretend. To her inexperience the sheets felt as if made of softest silk--at its crest the Darcy establishment had never run to fine linen--and they were edged with lace which Joan longed frugally to transfer to a best petticoat; only that there seemed no need for her to trouble further about best petticoats, nor about anything else. Under the eager guidance of her "new mamma," drawer after drawer in the room she occupied had been opened to disclose piles of exquisite underthings, of the sort Joan had first encountered upon the Calloway clothes lines, except that these were white instead of pink. "Pink's _my_ color," explained the former Mrs. Calloway. "Besides, white lawngerie seems sort of better for a girl that's never been married, don't you think? Even if it isn't so becoming. 'Tain't as if there was anybody to see her in it," she added, with a conscious blush. Joan found no suitable comment to make upon this treasure-trove. Her lips would not utter anything beyond a perfunctory "Thank you," even when further investigation discovered a closet hung with dresses of every sort, with peignoirs, with motor-coats and dainty wraps, with everything in the way of finery which every girl alive hopes at some time to possess, but which the daughter of Richard Darcy had learned to look upon from afar with an air of indifference. "Are these all for me?" she asked dully. "Of course they are! Just a few little models I had sent up on approval." (The ex-Mrs. Calloway invariably referred to her costumes in affectionate diminutives, as "little gowns," "little negligées," "little hats," etc., though the adjective could rarely be said to fit them.) "If these don't suit we'll get others--though anything ought to look good on your form, dearie." She added, clasping her hands, "It certainly is fun shoppin' for a daughter of your own!"--an outburst which might have struck some responsive chord in a heart less young than Joan's, less hard and tight and bitter with the tears that would not come.