"I have been very sick, Aunt Dorrie, my hair and my fat had to go--just
enough bones left to hold my soul. But I'm all right now."

"Don't be sorry for me," Joan was pleading, "I'm the gladdest thing
alive to-day. I've dropped all the old husks; I've found out just what
they are worth, but some of them that seem like husks, dear, are
not--I've learned that, too."

"Yes, Joan--and now go on, in just your own way. For a little while I
have you to myself. Nancy will take lunch at Uncle David's new
bungalow."

There was a good deal of explanation necessary in dealing with Sylvia's
part in the past--Doris had banked on Sylvia. The tea room was easier,
but Joan slipped over that experience so glibly that Doris made a mental
reservation concerning it.

Patricia was the critical test. At the mention of her name Cuff whined
pathetically, and Joan bent and gathered him in her arms.

"I--I can't talk much about Pat, dearie, not now"; Joan bent her head;
"she was so wonderful. Just a beautiful, lost spirit in the
world--trying to find its way home. There was only one way for Pat--I
shall always be glad that I could go part of it with her."

"Yes, yes--I am glad, too!" Doris whispered, for she had caught up with
Joan now. She did not know all that lay in the valleys--but she felt the
chill and darkness through which her child had come up to the light.
Strange as it might seem, she was thinking of that time, long ago, when
she had escaped from the Park and had touched life in the open.

The hospital experience Joan could describe with a touch of humour that
eventually brought a smile to Doris's face. She took for granted that it
had been in Chicago, and when Joan told of flitting away from the young
doctor who had saved her, Doris laughingly said:

"Joan, that was cruel. You should have explained."

"No, Aunt Dorrie, it was wise. Of course I'm going to explain to him and
send him the money, but I wanted to shut the door on my silly past
first. I shall only let in, hereafter, that part of it that I choose.
When I saw a man looking at me, Aunt Dorrie, where before I had been
seeing a doctor, there was nothing to do but scamper. He hadn't the
least idea what was happening--he saw only the bag of bones that he had
rescued, but I wasn't going to let him run any risks. You see, I've
learned more than some girls."

And then Joan, mentally, turned her back on the past. With that power
she had for holding to the thing she desired,