So, dreamer as she still was, nevertheless the only thing alight and alive in the old house, she ran down the staircases, past the statues that stood severely in the niches at the head of each flight, down finally to the basement dining-room where the three old people, her grandfather and grandmother and old Elizabeth, were waiting for her.
They sat at either end of the old mahogany table--that had been Lucilla Havenith's, too--with supper, plus the sandwiches left over from the tea, waiting untouched till Joy should come. By the way all three stopped short when she came in, Joy was sure they had been wondering what was the matter with her. She sank into her own chair, and took one of the walnut sandwiches which had been spared by the reception people. She was still hungry, and proceeded to eat it, at which Mrs. and Mr. Havenith looked happier.
"You see, Alton, she has an appetite," said Grandmother thankfully.
"Yes, I am glad to see she has," answered Grandfather, as if the circumstance was gratifying to him also. "I am very much relieved."
Joy felt guilty. When your grandparents were as fond as all that of you, you really hadn't any right to feel as if you wanted anything else. She straightened up and smiled gallantly at them, and took another sandwich by way of proving her health.
"You were overtired," said Grandmother solicitously--Grandmother, who had cut all the sandwiches, which Joy had only buttered! "The day's been oppressive."
So she passed Joy some more of the walnut sandwiches, and smiled to see that they were being eaten.
"But I am not satisfied, yet," said Grandfather. If Grandfather had only let well enough--and young girls' whimsies--alone, Joy wouldn't have been tempted. "What made you rush out that way, Joy--just as I was finishing the last stanza of the lyric, 'To Joy in Amber Satin,' too? You couldn't have chosen a worse possible moment. You nearly spoiled the effect."
Joy threw her head back defiantly. She knew that if Grandmother didn't understand her appeal, certainly Grandfather wouldn't.
"Grandfather," she said, "do you remember the anecdote you always tell to small groups of people, the one about the farmer who used to meet your friend, James Russell Lowell, on his afternoon walk every day, and say, 'Waal, Mr. Lowell, had a poem yet today?' _I_ had a poem!"