Joy soon opened her eyes and found her head resting on Faith’s shoulder.
“I’m sorry if I frightened you,” she said. Then with a sigh she concluded: “I guess I’ll have to give up trying to play in the tournament.”
“Never mind, Joy dear. We would far rather have you regain your strength slowly than win all of the tennis honors that could come to us,” Faith assured her.
With the assistance of loving arms, Joy returned to the school and was soon made comfortable in her padded blue silk kimono. Muriel and Gladys brought wood and made a fire on the hearth, while Catherine went kitchenward to fill the copper teakettle with boiling water.
The next day Joy felt as well as she had before, but the girls were unanimous in declaring that she must not play tennis again until spring. Then it was that Joy made a resolution.
When Joy realized that she would be unable to play in the tournament, which was the formal closing of the tennis season at High Cliffs, she resolved to teach Muriel the trick which her brother had taught her which would send a ball over the net with a smash and kill it before it bounced. The island girl knew the rules of the game, it would seem, and how light she was on her feet and how swift! If she could master that trick in one week, there still might be hope of winning. Muriel was sitting at her desk studying spelling early the next morning when there came a tap on her door. She thought it was the maid of that corridor and called, “Come in.” But when she saw the blue and gold apparition standing in the open doorway she sprang to her feet and held out both hands. “Oh, Joy!” she exclaimed. “It is good of you to come to see me. Do you think you’re strong enough to be walkin’ that far?”
The visitor sank down in the big, comfortably upholstered wicker chair near the hearth, where a bed of coals glowed. “I feel all right this morning,” she said, “but after yesterday’s experience I am convinced that I am not strong enough as yet to play in the tournament; and, Muriel, if you will promise not to share the knowledge without my permission, I will teach you the trick that my brother taught me.”
Muriel’s hazel eyes were wide. “But, Joy,” she ejaculated, “why is it me you would be teachin’ when Faith, Catherine and Gladys all play so much better?”