Michael Malone - Weebly

Along the garden walk to Morning Song came the
sun, and with it Father Highwick, who sang St.
Stephen's hymn with a smile. "The King shall come
when morning dawns, And light triumphant breaks."
The rector's shoe slipped off, and he stooped to tie it.
Then away he hummed. "When beauty gilds the eastern
hills, And life to Joy awakes.'"
And on Glover's Lane, Joy to life awakened, for
Lance Abernathy was coming to take her for a swim at
the Club. On Monday Joy had never ridden in a sports
car; on Tuesday she had never been to the Dingley
Club; and now on Wednesday, Lance and life and
maybe love waited for her outside her room. Anything,
everything could happen. Maybe now she would stop
feeling so tired and sick all the time, and maybe her
mother would stop treating her like a baby, and maybe
she would tell Lance she was only almost seventeen
instead of the nineteen years she had claimed for herself
when he asked.
Next door to Joy, Polly Hedgerow bounced with
an arch of her back out of bed. Today was vacation's
first day, that first vacant day undefined by the bells of