“I have a splendid cook—­a Scotch woman.  I’m going to specialize on scones, and oat cakes, and such things, but oh! it is the opening of the door and the awful days of waiting until the public finds out!”

“Exactly!” Sylvia nodded and Joan stared.  “You’ll have to lure the public, Elspeth, there’s no doubt about that.  Tea rooms are no novelty these days.  You’ll have to tease it with a bait, and the rest is easy.

“Now, my dear, here’s your bait!” With this, Sylvia turned so sharply upon Joan that Elspeth started nervously and regarded her guest as she might have a tempting worm:  something possibly necessary, but which she hesitated to touch.

“She can read—­palms!”

“Oh!  Syl——­” Joan panted, but Sylvia scowled her to silence.

“She can read palms,” she repeated, holding Elspeth by her firm tone; “a little more reading up, a bit of experience, and she’ll work wonders.  She doesn’t know it, but she’s psychic—­of course this is going to be fun; not real.  Just a lure.  We’ll have Joan in a long white robe—­a girl I know can design it.  We’ll have a filmy veil over the lower part of her face—­mystery, you know.  Look at her eyes, Elspeth, aren’t they great?  Give that ‘into-the-future’ stare, Joan!”

Joan rose to the fun of it all.  She grasped the possibilities, but Elspeth faltered.

“I don’t want to be—­ridiculous,” she said, slowly.  “I’m quite serious, and my food is going to be above question.”

“Of course!  And if you think Joan will make you ridiculous, you’ve got another guess coming, Elspeth.  Now, when do you open?”

“I have planned to open day after to-morrow.”  Elspeth spoke hesitatingly, keeping her cool, businesslike glance on Joan.

“All right,” Sylvia was tapping her fingers restlessly; “that’s Thursday.  I’ll get a girl I know to work on the costume to-night; we’ll buy books on palmistry on our way home.  We’ll give you just four days to lure your public with scones, and then if you don’t call Joan up, she’ll start a tea room herself across the way.”

This made them all laugh, but there was an earnestness in their eyes.

And on Sunday night Elspeth spoke over the telephone.

“Could you come to-morrow at two, Miss Thornton?”

Joan, sitting close to the telephone, winked at Sylvia.  They had all been sitting up nights working, reading, and praying for that question.

“I think so,” was the reply in quite an unmoved and businesslike tone.

“And remember, Joan,” Sylvia cautioned later, “this is but a means to fit you for a profession!”

“I’ll remember,” Joan twinkled, “in the meantime, I am going to enjoy myself.”

CHAPTER XI

“Let us live happily, free from care among the busy.”

There was one of Sylvia’s friends who, from the first, caught and held Joan’s imagination.  That was Patricia Leigh.