"I'm so glad you've come!" she almost said. He seemed like some one
she had been waiting for a long while, some way, instead of the usual
stranger you had to get used to. There was such a breath of freshness
and courage and cheer in just the few words he had spoken and the little
laugh they were borne on, that Joy felt irrationally what a nice world
it was. Then she remembered to reply to what he had said.

"It isn't a privilege, being me," she explained from her shadows.

He looked over to where her voice came from, but there wasn't
anything visible except a little dark heap on the last three stairs.

"I could tell better if I could see you," he stated pleasantly.
"Don't you want to take the hint?"

But Joy, mindful of the hanging braids that would certainly make him
think she was a little girl, would not take it at all. She snuggled
against the wall.

"Oh, you can see me any time," she said carelessly, "but you can
scarcely ever get to talk to me. At least, I heard somebody say so
last month."

She felt quite like somebody else, a gay, teasing, careless sort of
real girl, talking to him here in the dark. She was sure she
wouldn't if the lights were on. She could talk to him as if he were
some one out of a book or a story, so long as he didn't know she
looked like a book-person or a play-person herself.

"Well, anyway, do let me stay here," he begged, doing it. "For the