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 GYPSY'S 
 OUSIN JOY 
 
 
 ELIZABETH 
 STUART 
 PHELPS 
 
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 THE LIBRARY OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF 
 
 NORTH CAROLINA 
 
 ENDOWED BY THE 
 
 DIALECTIC AND PHILANTHROPIC 
 
 SOCIETIES 
 
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T >. WILSON LIBRARY on the 
 *." If not on hold it may be 
 
 RET. 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY OF 
 
 NORTH CAROLINA 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
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 PRESENTED BY THE 
 
 WILLIAM A. WHITAKER 
 
 FOUNDATION 
 
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This book is due at the LOUIS R. WILSON LIBRARY on the 
 last date stamped under "Date Due." If not on hold it may be 
 renewed by bringing it to the library. 
 
 DATE RET 
 
 DATE 
 DUE 
 
 Nov T"~T§7 b r~ 
 
 - 
 
 
 
 ACT 1M378 
 
 *Y3 076 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1866, by 
 
 GRAVES & YOUNG, 
 
 in the Clerk's Office for the District Court of Massachusetts. 
 
 Copyright, 1S95, by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward- 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 Having been asked to write a preface 
 to the new edition of the Gypsy books, I 
 am not a little perplexed. I was hardly 
 more than a girl myself, when I recorded 
 the history of this young person; and I 
 find it hard, at this distance, to photograph 
 her as she looks, or ought to look to-day. 
 She does not sit still long enough to be 
 "taken." I see a lively girl in pretty short 
 dresses and very long stockings, — quite a 
 Tom-boy, if I remember rightly. She pad- 
 dles a raft, she climbs a tree, she skates 
 and tramps and coasts, she is usually very 
 muddy, and a little torn. There is apt to 
 be a pin in her gathers; but there is sure 
 to be a laugh in her eyes. Wherever there 
 is mischief, there is Gypsy. Yet, wherever 
 
there is fun, and health, and hope, and hap- 
 piness, — and I think, wherever there is truth- 
 fulness and generosity, — there is Gypsy, too. 
 
 And now, the publishers tell me that 
 Gypsy is thirty years old, and that girls 
 who were not so much as born when I 
 knew the little lady, are her readers and 
 her friends to-day. 
 
 Thirty years old? Indeed, it is more than 
 that! For is it not thirty years since the 
 publication of her memoirs? And was she, 
 at that time, possibly sixteen? Forty-six 
 years? Incredible! How in the world did 
 Gypsy " grow up ?" For that was before tobog- 
 gans and telephones, before bicycles and 
 electric cars, before bangs and puffed 
 sleeves, before girls studied Greek, and golf- 
 capes came in. Did she go to college ? For 
 the Annex, and Smith, and Wellesley were 
 not. Did she have a career ? Or take a hus- 
 band? Did she edit a Quarterly Review, or 
 sing a baby to sleep? Did she write poetry, 
 
or make pies? Did she practice medicine, 
 or matrimony? Who knows? Not even the 
 author of her being. 
 
 Only one thing I do know: Gypsy never 
 grew up to be "timid," or silly, or mean, 
 or lazy; but a sensible woman, true and 
 strong; asking little help of other people, 
 but giving much; an honor to her brave 
 and loving sex, and a safe comrade to the 
 girls who kept step with her into middle 
 life; and I trust that I may bespeak from 
 their daughters and their scholars a kindly 
 welcome to an old story, told again. 
 
 Elizabeth Stuart Phelps. 
 
 Newton Centre, Mass., 
 April, sSgj. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 MOB 
 
 News 7 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 Shai l She Come ? 24 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 One Evening .4° 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 Chestnuts 54 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 Gypsy makes a Discovery 82 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 Who put it in ? 99 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 Peace Maythorne's Room 122 
 
XI CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 PACK 
 
 The Story of a Night ^8 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 Up Rattlesnake 187 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 We are Lost .211 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 Grand Times • • 229 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 A Telegram • ■ 243 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 A Sunday Night ....... 263 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 Good-bye ...... r • • 2 74 
 
•&^S^Efi5sflt^9 
 
 
 H E second arithmetic class 
 had just come out to recite, 
 when somebody knocked at 
 the door. Miss Cardrew sent 
 Delia Guest to open it. 
 " It's a — ha, ha! letter — he, 
 J he! for you," said Delia, coming 
 "I up to the desk. Exactly where- 
 in lay the joke, in the fact that Miss 
 Cardrew should have a letter, nobody but 
 Delia was capable of seeing; but Delia was 
 given to seeing jokes on all occasions, under 
 
all circumstances. Go wherever you might, 
 from a prayer-meeting to the playground, you 
 were sure to hear her little giggle. 
 
 "A letter for you," repeated Delia Guest. 
 51 He, he! " 
 
 Miss Cardrew laid down her arithmetic, 
 opened the letter, and read it. 
 "Gypsy Breynton." 
 
 The arithmetic class 
 
 stopped whispering, 
 
 jg$^S> and there was a great 
 
 lull in the school- 
 
 room. 
 
 "Why I never!" 
 
 giggled Delia. Gypsy, 
 
 all in a flutter at having 
 
 | her name read right out 
 
 fU-, 
 ' in school, and divided 
 
 between her horror lest the kitten she had 
 
 tied to a spool of thread at recess, had been 
 
 discovered, and an awful suspicion that Mr. 
 
 Jonathan Jones saw her run across his plowed 
 
field after chestnuts, went slowly up to the 
 desk. 
 
 ' ' Your mother has sent for you to come 
 directly home," said Miss Cardrew, in a low 
 tone. Gypsy looked a little frightened. 
 
 "Go home! Is anybody sick, Miss Car- 
 drew ? " 
 
 "She doesn't say — she gives no reasons. 
 You'd better not stop to talk, Gypsy." 
 
 Gypsy went to her desk, and began to 
 gather up her books as fast as she could. 
 
 " I shouldn't wonder a bit if the house'd 
 caught afire," whispered Agnes Gaylord. " I 
 had an uncle once, and his house caught afire — 
 in the chimney too, and everybody'd gone to a 
 prayer-meeting ; they had now, true's you 
 live." 
 
 " Maybe your father's dead," condoled Sarah 
 Rowe. 
 
 " Or Winnie." 
 
 "Or Tom." 
 
 "Just think of it! " 
 
 9 
 
"What do you s'pose it is ?" 
 
 " If I were you, I guess I'd be frightened! " 
 
 "Order!" said Miss Cardrew, in a loud 
 voice. 
 
 The girls stopped whispering, and Gypsy 
 in nowise reassured by their sympathy, hur- 
 ried out to put on her things. With her 
 hat thrown on one side of her head, the 
 strings hanging down into her eyes, her sack 
 rolled up in a bundle under her arm, and her 
 rubbers in her pocket, she started for home 
 on the full run. Yorkbury was pretty well 
 used to Gypsy, but everybody stopped and 
 stared at her that morning ; what with her 
 burning cheeks, and those rubbers sticking 
 out of her pocket, and the hat-strings flying, 
 and the brambles catching her dress, and the 
 mud splashing up under her swift feet, it was 
 no wonder. 
 
 "Miss Gypsy!" called old Mr. Simms, the 
 clerk, as she flew by the door of her father's 
 book-store. "Miss Gypsy, my dear/" 
 
But on ran Gypsy without so mucn as 
 giving him a look, across the road in front 
 of a carriage, around a load of hay, and 
 away like a bird down the street. Out ran 
 Gypsy's pet aversion, Mrs. Surly, from a 
 shop-door somewhere — 
 
 "Gypsy Breynton, what a sight you be! 
 I believe you've gone clear crazy — Gypsy ! " 
 
 "Can't stop!" shouted Gypsy, "it's a fire 
 or something somewhere." 
 
 Eight small boys at the word "fire" ap- 
 peared on the instant from nobody knew 
 where, and ran after her with hoarse yells of 
 
 "fire! fire! Where's the engine? Vi 
 
 ir-r- ! " By this time, too, three dogs and a 
 nanny-goat were chasing her; the dogs were 
 barking, and the nanny-goat was baaing or 
 braying, or whatever it is that nanny-goats do, 
 so she swept up to the house in a unique, 
 triumphal procession. 
 
 Winnie came out to meet her as she came 
 in fl.t "-he gate panting and scarlet-faced. 
 
Fifty years instead of five might Win- 
 nie have been at that moment, and all the 
 cares of Church and State on the shoulders 
 of his pinafore, to judge from the pucker in 
 his chin. There was always a pucker in Win- 
 nie's chin, when he felt — as the boys call it — 
 "big." 
 
 "What do s'pose, Gypsy? — don't you wish 
 you knew? " 
 
 "What?" 
 
 " Oh, no matter, /know." 
 
 " Winnie Breynton! " 
 
 "Well," said Winnie, with the air of a Grand 
 Mogul feeding a chicken, " I don't care if I tell 
 you. We've had a temmygral." 
 
 " A telegram!" 
 
 "I just guess we have; you'd oughter seen 
 the man. He'd lost his nose, and " 
 
 "A telegram! Is there any bad news? 
 Where did it come from?" 
 
 " It came from Bosting," said Winnie, with a 
 superior smile. " I s'posed you knew that.' 
 
It'u sumfin abou 4 " Aunt Miranda, I shouldn't 
 wonder." 
 
 "Aunt Miranda! Is anybody sick? Is any- 
 body dead, or anything? " 
 
 "I don't know," said Winnie, cheerfully. 
 " But I guess you wish you'd seen the en- 
 velope. It had the funniest little letters 
 punched through on top — it did now, really." 
 
 Gypsy ran into the house at that, and left 
 Winnie to his meditations. 
 
 Her mother called her from over the ban- 
 isters, and she ran upstairs. A small trunk 
 stood open by the bed, and the room was filled 
 with the confusion of packing. 
 
 "Your Aunt Miranda is sick," said Mrs. 
 Breynton. 
 
 "What are you packing up for? You're not 
 going off!" exclaimed Gypsy, incapable of 
 taking in a greater calamity than that, and 
 quite forgetting Aunt Miranda. 
 
 " Yes. Your uncle has written for us to 
 come right on. She is very sick, Gypsy." 
 
"Oh!" said Gypsy, penitently; "danger- 
 ous? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 Gypsy looked sober because her mother did, 
 and she thought she ought to. 
 
 "Your father and I are going in this noon 
 train," proceeded Mrs. Breynton, rolling up a 
 pair of slippers, and folding a wrapper away in 
 the trunk. " I think I am needed. The fever 
 is very severe; possibly — contagious," said 
 Mrs. Breynton, quietly. Mrs. Breynton made 
 it a rule to have very few concealments from 
 her children. . All family plans which could 
 be, were openly and frankly discussed. She 
 believed that it did the children good to feel 
 that they had a share in them ; that it did them 
 good to be trusted. She never kept bad tidings 
 from them simply because they were bad. The 
 mysteries and prevarications necessary to keep 
 an unimportant secret, were, she reasoned, 
 worse for them than a little anxiety. Gypsy 
 must know some time about her aunt's sick- 
 
ness. She preferred she should hear it from 
 her mother's lips, see for herself the reasons 
 for this sudden departure and risk, if risk 
 there were, and be woman enough to under- 
 stand them. 
 
 Gypsy looked sober now in earnest. 
 
 "Why, mother! How can you? What if you 
 catch it? " 
 
 "There is very little chance of that; one 
 possibility in a hundred, perhaps. Help me 
 fold up this dress, Gypsy — no, on the bed — 
 so." 
 
 "But if you should get sick! I don't see 
 why you need go. She isn't your own sis- 
 ter anyway, and she never did anything for 
 us, nor cared anything for us." 
 
 "Your uncle wants me, and that is enough. 
 I want to be to her a sister if I can — poor 
 thing, she has no sister of her own, and no 
 mother, nobody but the hired nurses with 
 her ; and she may die, Gypsy. If I can be 
 of any help, I am glad to be." 
 
Her mother spoke in a quiet, decided tone, 
 with which Gypsy knew there was no argu- 
 ing. She helped her fold her dresses and 
 lock her trunk, very silently, for Gypsy, and 
 then ran away to busy herself with Patty 
 in getting the travelers' luncheon. When 
 Gypsy felt badly, she always hunted up some- 
 thing to do ; in this she showed the very 
 best of her good sense. And let me tell 
 you, girls, as a little secret — in the worst 
 fits of the "blues" you ever have, if you 
 are guilty of having any, do you go straight 
 into the nursery and build a block house for 
 the baby, or upstairs and help your mother 
 baste for the machine, or into the dining- 
 room to help Bridget set the table, or into 
 the corner where some diminutive brother is 
 crying over his sums which a very few 
 words from you would straighten, or into 
 the parlor where your father sits shading his 
 eyes from the lamp-light, with no one to 
 read him the paper ; and before you know 
 
it, you will be as happy as a queen. You 
 don't believe it ? Try and see. 
 
 Gypsy drowned her sorrow at her mother's 
 departure, in broiling her mutton-chops and 
 cutting her pie, and by the time the coach 
 drove to the door, and the travelers stood 
 in the entry with bag and baggage, all ready 
 to start, the smiles had come back to her 
 lips, and the twinkle to her eyes. 
 
 ''Good-bye, father! O — oh, mother Breyn- 
 ton, give me another kiss. There ! — one more. 
 Now, if you don't write just as soon as you 
 get there ! " 
 
 "Be a good girl, and take nice care of 
 Winnie," called her mother from the coach- 
 window. And then they were driven rapidly 
 away, and the house seemed to grow still 
 and dark all at once, and a great many 
 clouds to be in the warm, autumn sky. The 
 three children stood a moment in the entry 
 looking forlornly at each other. I beg Tom's 
 pardon — I suppose I should have said the two 
 
children and the " young man." Probably 
 never again in his life will Tom feel quite 
 as old as he felt in that sixteenth year. 
 Gypsy was the first to break the dismal 
 silence. 
 
 "How horrid it's going to be! You go 
 upstairs and she won't be there, and there'll 
 be nobody coming home from the store at 
 night, and, then — you go round, and it's so 
 still, and nobody but me to keep house, and 
 Patty has just what she likes for breakfast, 
 for all me, and / think Aunt Miranda needn't 
 have gone and been sick, anyway." 
 
 "A most sensible and sympathizing niece," 
 observed Tom, in his patronizing way. 
 
 "Well, you see, I suppose I don't care very 
 much about Aunt Miranda," said Gypsy, con- 
 fidentially. " I'm sorry she's sick, but I 
 didn't have a bit nice time in Boston last 
 vacation, and she scolded me dreadfully when 
 I blew out the gas. What is it, Patty ? Oh, 
 yes — come to dinner, boys." 
 
"I say," remarked Winnie, at the rather 
 doleful dinner-table, " look here, Gypsy." 
 "What?" 
 " S'posin' when they'd got Aunt Miranda 
 
 all nailed into her coffin — tight in — she should 
 be ////-deaded, and open her eyes, and be- 
 gin — begin to squeal, you know. S'pose they'd 
 let her out ? " 
 
 Just four days from the morning Mrs. 
 
 J 9 
 
Breynton left, Tom came up from the office 
 with a very sober face and a letter. 
 
 Gypsy ran out to meet him, and put out 
 her hand, in a great hurry to read it. 
 
 "I'll read it to you," said Tom; "it's to 
 me. Come into the parlor." 
 
 They went in, and Tom read: 
 
 "My Dear Son: 
 
 " I write in great haste, just to let you know 
 that your Aunt Miranda is gone. She died 
 last night at nine o'clock, in great distress. I 
 was with her at the last. I am glad I came — 
 very ; it seems to have been a comfort to 
 her ; she was so lonely and deserted. The 
 funeral is day after to-morrow, and we shall 
 stay of course. We hope to be home on 
 Monday. There has been no time yet to 
 make any plans ; I can't tell what the family 
 will do. Poor Joy cannot bear to be left 
 alone a minute. She follows me round like a 
 frightened child. The tears come into my 
 
eyes every time I look at her, for the thoughts 
 of three dear, distant faces that might be left 
 just so, but for God's mercy to them and to 
 me. She is just about Gypsy's age and height, 
 you know. The disease proved not to be 
 contagious, so you need feel no anxiety. A 
 kiss to both the children. Your father sends 
 much love. We shall be glad to get home 
 and see you again. 
 
 " Very lovingly, 
 
 "Mother." 
 
 Inside the n:>te was a slip for Gypsy, with 
 this written on it : 
 
 " I must stop to tell you, Gypsy, of a little 
 thing your aunt said the day before she died. 
 She had been speaking of Joy in her weak, 
 troubled way — of some points wherein she 
 hoped she would be a different woman from 
 her mother, and had then lain still a while, her 
 eyes closed, something — as you used to- say 
 when you were a little girl — very sorry about 
 
her mouth, when suddenly she turned and said, 
 ' I wish I'd made Gypsy's visit here a little 
 pleasanter. Tell her she must think as well as 
 she can of her auntie, for Joy's sake, now.' " 
 
 Gypsy folded up the paper, and sat silent n 
 moment, thinking her own thoughts, as Tom 
 saw, and not wishing to be spoken to. 
 
 Those of you who have read " Gypsy Breyn- 
 ton " will understand what these thoughts 
 might be. Those who have not, need only 
 know that Gypsy's aunt had been rather a 
 gay, careless -lady, well dressed and jeweled, 
 and fond enough of dresses and jewels ; and 
 that in a certain visit Gypsy made her not 
 long ago, she had been far from thoughtful of 
 her country niece's comfort. 
 
 And this was how it had ended. Poor Aunt 
 Miranda ! 
 
 ''Well," said Gypsy, at last, with something 
 dim in her eyes, " I dare say I was green and 
 awkward, and it was half my fault. I never 
 
could understand how people could just turn 
 round when anybody dies, and say they were 
 good and perfect, when it wasn't any such a 
 thing, and I can't say I think she was, for it 
 would be a lie. But I won't say anything more 
 against her. Poor Joy, poor Joy! Not to 
 have any mother, Tom, just think! Oh, just 
 think I " 
 
 33 
 
P P E R was ready. 
 It had been ready 
 now for ten minutes. 
 The cool, white cloth, 
 bright glass, glitter- 
 ing silver, and delicate china 
 painted with a primrose and 
 an ivy-leaf — the best china, 
 and very extravagant in 
 Gypsy, of course, but she 
 thought the occasion deserved it — were all 
 laid in their places upon the table. The 
 tea was steeped to precisely the right point; 
 
the rich, mellow flavor had just escaped the 
 clover taste on one side, and the bitterness of 
 too much boiling on the other; the deli- 
 cately sugared apples were floating in their 
 amber juices in the round glass preserve- 
 dish, the smoked halibut was done to the most 
 delightful brown crispness, the puffy, golden 
 drop-cakes were smoking from the oven, and 
 Patty was growling as nobody but Patty could 
 growl, for fear they would "slump down in- 
 tirely an' be gittin' as heavy as lead," before 
 they could be eaten. 
 
 There was a bright fire in the dining-room 
 grate; the golden light was dancing a jig all 
 over the walls, hiding behind the curtains, co- 
 quetting with the silver, and touching the 
 primroses on the plates to a perfect sunbeam ; 
 for father and mother were coming. Tom and 
 Gypsy and Winnie were all three running to 
 the windows and the door every two minutes 
 and dressed in their very " Sunday-go-to-meet- 
 ing best; " for father and mother were com- 
 
ing. Tom had laughed well at this plan of 
 dressing up — Gypsy's notion, of course, and 
 ridiculous enough, said Tom ; fit for babies 
 like Winnie, and girls. (I wish I could give 
 you in print the peculiar emphasis with which 
 Tom was wont to dwell on this word.) But 
 for all that, when Gypsy came down in 
 her new Scotch plaid dress, with her cheeks 
 so red, and her hair so smooth and black ; 
 and Winnie strutted across the room counting 
 the buttons on his best jacket, Tom slipped 
 away to his room, and came down with his 
 purple necktie on. 
 
 It made a pretty, homelike picture — the 
 bright table and the firelight, and the eager 
 faces at the window, and the gay dresses. 
 Any father and mother might have been glad 
 to call it all their own, and come into it out 
 of the cold and the dark, after a weary day's 
 journey. • 
 
 These cozy, comfortable touches about it — 
 the little conceit of the painted china, and 
 26 
 
the best clothes — were just like Gypsy. Since 
 she was glad to see her father and mother, 
 it was imperatively necessary that she should 
 show it; there was no danger but what her 
 joy would have been sufficiently evident — 
 where everything else was — in her eyes; but 
 according to Gypsy's view of matters, it must 
 express itself in some sort of celebration. 
 Whether her mother wouldn't have been 
 quite as well pleased if her delicate, ex- 
 pensive porcelain had been kept safely in the 
 closet; whether, indeed, it was exactly right 
 for her to take it out without leave, Gypsy 
 never stopped to consider. When she wanted 
 to do a thing, she could never see any rea- 
 sons why it shouldn't be done, like a few 
 other girls I have heard of in New Eng- 
 land. However, just such a mother as Gypsy 
 had was quite likely to pardon such a little 
 carelessness as this, for the love in it, and 
 the welcoming thoughts. 
 
 "They're comin', comin', comin'," shouted 
 27 
 
Winnie, from the door-steps, where, in the 
 exuberance of his spirits, he was trying very 
 hard to stand on his head, and making a 
 most remarkable failure — "they're comin' 
 lickitycut, and I'm five years old, 'n' I've got 
 on my best jacket, 'n' they're comin' slam 
 bang! " 
 
 "Coming, coming, coming!" echoed Gypsy, 
 about as wild as Winnie himself, and flying 
 past him dewn to the gate, leaving Tom to 
 follow in Tom's own dignified way. 
 
 Such a kissing, and laughing, and talking, 
 and delightful- confusion as there was then ! 
 Such a shouldering of bags and valises and 
 shawls, such hurrying of mother in out of the 
 cold; such a pulling of father's whiskers, such 
 peeping into mysterious bundles, and pulling 
 off of wrappers, and hurrying Patty with the 
 tea-things; and questions and answers, and 
 everybody talking at once — - one might have 
 supposed the travelers had been gone a month 
 instead of a week. 
 
 9& 
 
"My kitty had a fit," observed Winnie, in 
 the first pause he could find. 
 
 " And there are some letters for father," 
 
 from Tom. 
 
 " Patty has a new beau," interrupted Gypsy. 
 
 I 
 "It was an awfully fit," put in Winnie, un- 
 
 discouraged; " she rolled under the stove, 'n' I 
 
 tell you she squealed, and ' ' 
 
 " How is uncle? " asked Tom, and it was the 
 first time any one had thought to ask. 
 
 "Then she jumped — splash! into the hogs- 
 head," continued Winnie, determined to finish. 
 
 "He is not very well," said Mr. Breynton, 
 gravely, and then they sat down to supper, 
 talking the while about him. Winnie subsided 
 in great disgust, and devoted himself, body, 
 mind, and heart, to the drop-cakes. 
 
 "Ah, the best china, I see," said Mrs. 
 Breynton, presently, with one of her pleas- 
 antest smiles, and as Mrs. Breynton's smiles 
 were always pleasant, this was saying a great 
 deal. "And the Sunday things on, too — in 
 
honor of our coming? How pleasant it all 
 seems! and how glad I am to be at home 
 again." 
 
 Gypsy looked radiant — very much, in fact, 
 like a little sun dropped down from the sky, or 
 a jewel all ablaze. 
 
 Some mothers would have reproved her 
 for the use of the china; some who had not 
 quite the heart to reprove would have said 
 they were sorry she had taken it out. Mrs. 
 Breynton would rather have had her hand- 
 some plates broken to atoms than to chill, 
 by so much as a look, the glow of the 
 child's face just then. 
 
 There was decidedly more talking than 
 eating done at supper, and they lingered 
 long at the table, in the pleasant firelight 
 and lamplight. 
 
 " It seems exactly like the resurrection 
 day for all the world," said Gypsy. 
 
 "The resurrection day?" 
 
 "Why, yes. When you went off I kept 
 
thinking everybody was dead and buried, all 
 that morning, and it was real horrid — Oh, 
 you don't know ! " 
 
 " Gypsy," said Mrs. Breynton, a while after 
 supper, when Winnie had gone to bed, and 
 Tom and his father were casting accounts by 
 
 3i 
 
the fire, " I want to see you a few minutes." 
 Gypsy, wondering, followed her into the par- 
 lor. Mrs. Breynton shut the door, and they 
 sat down together on the sofa. 
 
 " I want to have a talk with you, Gypsy, 
 about something that we'd better talk over 
 alone." 
 
 "Yes'm,"said Gypsy, quite bewildered by 
 her mother's grave manner, and thinking up 
 all the wrong things she had done for a 
 week. Whether it was the time she got so 
 provoked at Patty for having dinner late, 
 or scolded Winnie for trying to paint with 
 the starch (and if ever any child deserved it, 
 he did), or got kept after school for whispering, 
 or brought down the nice company quince mar- 
 malade to eat with the blanc mange, or 
 whether 
 
 " You haven't asked about your cousin, Joy," 
 said her mother, interrupting her thinking. 
 
 "Oh! — how is she?" said Gypsy, looking 
 somewhat ashamed. 
 
" I am sorry for the child," said Mrs. Breyn- 
 ton. musingly. 
 
 " What's going to become of her? Who's 
 going to take care of her? " 
 
 "That is just what I came in here to talk. 
 about." 
 
 " Why. I don't see what I have to do with 
 it ! " said Gypsy, astonished. 
 
 " Her father thinks of going abroad, and so 
 there would be no one to leave her with. He 
 finds himself quite worn out by your aunt's 
 sickness, the care and anxiety and trouble. 
 His business also requires some member of the 
 firm to go to France this fall, and he has 
 almost decided to go. The only thing that 
 makes him hesitate is Joy." 
 
 "I see what you mean now, mother — I see 
 it in your eyes. You want Joy to come here." 
 Gypsy spoke in a slow, uncomfortable way, as 
 if she were trying very hard not to believe her 
 own words. 
 
 "Yes," said Mrs. Breynton, "that is it." 
 
Gypsy's bright face fell. "Well?" she said, 
 at last. 
 
 11 1 told your uncle, " said her mother, " that 
 I could not decide on the spot, but would let 
 him know next week. The question of Joy's 
 coming here will affect you more than any 
 member of the family, and I thought it only 
 fair to you that we should talk it over frankly 
 before it is settled." 
 
 Gypsy had a vague notion that all mothers 
 would not have been so thoughtful, but she 
 said nothing. 
 
 "I do not- wish," proceeded Mrs. Breynton, 
 ' ' to make any arrangement in which you can- 
 not be happy; but I have great faith in your 
 kind heart, Gypsy." 
 
 "I don't like Joy," said Gypsy, bluntly. 
 
 " I know that, and I am sorry it is so," said 
 her mother. " I understand just what Joy is. 
 But it is not all her fault. She has not been 
 trained just as you have, Gypsy. She was 
 never taught and helped to be a generous, 
 
gentle child, as you have been taught and 
 helped. Your uncle and aunt felt differently 
 about these things; but it is no matter about 
 that now — you will understand it better when 
 you are older. It is enough for you to know 
 that Joy has great excuse for her faults. Even 
 if they were twice as great as they are, one 
 wouldn't think much about them now; the poor 
 child is in great trouble, lonely and frightened 
 and motherless. Think, if God took awa} T 
 your mother, Gypsy." 
 
 "But Joy didn't care much about her 
 mother," said honest Gypsy. "She used to 
 scold her, Joy told me so herself. Besides, I 
 heard her, ever so many times." 
 
 "Peace be with the dead, Gypsy; let all 
 that go. She was all the mother Joy had, and 
 if you had seen what I saw a night or two 
 before I came away, you wouldn't say she 
 didn't love her." 
 
 " What was it? " asked Gypsy. 
 
 "Your auntie was lying all alone, upstairs. 
 
 35 
 
I went in softly, to do one or two little things 
 about the room, thinking no one was there. 
 
 " One faint gaslight was burning, and in the 
 dimness I saw that the sheet was turned down 
 from the face, and a poor little quivering figure 
 was crouched beside it on the bed. It was Joy. 
 She was sobbing as if her heart would break, 
 and such sobs — it would have made you cry to 
 hear them, Gypsy. She didn't hear me come 
 in, and she began to talk to the dead face as if 
 it could hear her. Do you want to know what 
 she said? " 
 
 Gypsy was looking very hard the other way. 
 She nodded, but did not speak, gulping down 
 something in her throat. 
 
 "This was what she said — softly, in Joy's 
 frightened way, you know: 'You're all I had 
 anyway,' said she. 'All the other girls have 
 got mothers, and now I won't ever have any, 
 any more. I did used to bother you and be 
 cross about my practising, and not do as you 
 told me, and I wish I hadn't, and- 
 
 3& 
 
"Oh — hum, look here — mother," interrupted 
 Gypsy, jumping up and winking very fast, 
 "isn't there a train up from Boston early 
 Monday morning? She might come in that, 
 you know." 
 
 Mrs. Breynton smiled. 
 
 " Then she may come, may she? " 
 
 " I rather think she may," said Gypsy, with an 
 emphasis. " I'll write her a letter and tell her so." 
 
 " That will be a good plan, Gypsy. But you 
 are quite sure? I don't want you to decide this 
 matter in too much of a hurry." 
 
 "She'll sleep in the front room, of course? " 
 suggested Gypsy. 
 
 " No; if she comes, she must sleep with you. 
 With our family and only one servant, I could 
 hardly keep up the extra work that would 
 cause for six months or a year." 
 
 " Six months or a year! In my room ! " 
 
 Gypsy walked back and forth across the room 
 two or three times, her merry forehead all 
 wrinkled into a knot. 
 
 37 
 
"Well," at last, " I've said it, and I'll stick 
 to it, and I'll try to make her have a good time, 
 anyway." 
 
 " Come here, Gypsy." 
 
 Gypsy came, and one of those rare, soft 
 kisses — very different from the ordinary, every- 
 day kisses — that her mother gave her when she 
 hadn't just the words to say how pleased 
 she was, fell on her forehead, and smoothed 
 out the knot before you could say " Jack 
 Robinson." 
 
 That very afternoon Gypsy wrote her note to 
 
 Joy: 
 
 V Dear Joy: 
 
 "I'm real sorry your mother died. You'd 
 better come right up here next week, and we'll 
 go chestnutting over by Mr. Jonathan Jones's. 
 I tell you it's splendid climbing up. If you're 
 very careful, you needn't tear your dress very 
 badly. Then there's the raft, and you might 
 play baseball, too. I'll teach you. 
 
"You see if you don't have a nice time. 
 I can't think of anything more to say. 
 " Your affectionate cousin, 
 
 "Gypsy." 
 
WAKEK: 
 
 6t\£- 
 •EY£JHm6 
 
 O it was settled, 
 and Joy came. 
 There was no es- 
 pecial day ap- 
 pointed for the 
 journey. Her father was to come up with her 
 as soon as he had arranged his affairs so 
 that he could do so, and then to go directly 
 back to Boston and sail at once. 
 
 Gypsy found plenty to do, in getting ready 
 for her cousin. This having- a roommate 
 
for the first time in her life was by no 
 means an unimportant event to her. Her 
 room had always been her own especial pri- 
 vate property. Here in a quiet nook on 
 the broad window-sill she had curled her- 
 self up for hours with her new story-books; 
 here she had locked herself in to learn her 
 lessons, and keep her doll's dressmaking out 
 of Winnie's way ; here she had gone away alone 
 to have all her "good cries;" here she some- 
 times spent a part of her Sabbath evenings 
 with her most earnest and sober thoughts. 
 
 Here was the mantel-shelf, covered with 
 her little knick-knacks that no one was ever 
 allowed to touch but herself — pictures framed 
 in pine cones, boxes of shell-work, baskets of 
 wafer-work, cologne-bottles, watchcases, ivy- 
 shoots and minerals, on which the dust ac- 
 cumulated at its own sweet will, and the 
 characteristic variety and arrangement whereof 
 none ever disputed with her. What if Joy 
 should bring a trunkful of ornaments ? 
 
There in the wardrobe were her treasures 
 covering six shelves— her kites and balls of 
 twine, fishlines and doll's bonnets, 
 scraps of gay silk and jackknives, 
 old compositions and portfolios, 
 colored paper and dried moss, 
 pieces of chalk and 
 horse- chestnuts, 
 broken jewelry 
 and marbles. It 
 was a curious col- 
 lection. One 
 would sup- 
 pose it to 
 be a sort 
 
 o f eo- 
 
 f| 
 partnership 
 
 between the proper- 
 ty of a boy and girl, in which 
 the boy decidedly predominated. 
 
 Into this wardrobe Gypsy looked regret- 
 fully. Three of those shelves— those precious 
 
shelves — must be Joy's now. And what 
 should be done with the things ? 
 
 Then there were the bureau drawers. What 
 sorcerer's charms, to say nothing of the 
 somewhat unwilling fingers of a not very 
 enthusiastic little girl, could cram the con- 
 tents of four (and those so full that they 
 were overflowing through the cracks) into 
 two ? 
 
 Moreover, as any one acquainted with cer- 
 tain chapters in Gypsy's past history will re- 
 member, her premises were not always cele- 
 brated for the utmost tidiness. And here 
 was Joy, used to her elegant carpets and 
 marble-covered bureaus, and gas-fixtures and 
 Cochituate, with servants to pick up her 
 things for her ever since she was a baby! 
 How shocked she would be at the dust, 
 and the ubiquitous slippers, and the slips 
 and shreds on the carpet ; and how should 
 she have the least idea what it was to have 
 to do things yourself ? 
 
However, Gypsy put a brave face on it, and 
 emptied the bureau drawers, and squeezed 
 away the treasures into three shelves, and did 
 her best to make the room look pleasant and 
 inviting to the little stranger. In fact, before 
 she was through with the work she became 
 really very much interested in it. She had 
 put a clean white quilt upon the bed, and 
 looped up the curtain with a handsome crimson 
 ribbon, taken from the stock in the wardrobe. 
 She had swept and dusted every corner and 
 crevice; she had displayed all her ornaments 
 to the best advantage, and put fresh cologne 
 in the bottles. She had even brought from 
 some sanctum, where it was folded away in 
 the dark, a very choice silk flag about four 
 inches long, that she had made when the war 
 began, and was keeping very tenderly to wear 
 when Richmond was taken, and pinned it 
 up over her looking-glass. 
 
 On the table, too, stood her Parian vase filled 
 with golden and blood-red maple-leaves, and 
 
the flaming berries of the burning-bush. 
 Very prettily the room looked, when every- 
 thing was finished, and Gypsy was quite proud 
 of it. 
 
 Joy came Thursday night. They were all 
 in the parlor when the coach stopped, and 
 Gypsy ran out to meet her. 
 
 A pale, sickly, tired-looking child, draped 
 from head to foot in black, came up the 
 steps clinging to her father's hand, and fret- 
 ting over something or other about the bag- 
 gage. 
 
 Gypsy was springing forward to meet her, 
 but stopped short. The last time she had 
 seen Joy, she was in gay Stuart-plaid silk 
 and corals. She had forgotten all about the 
 mourning. How thin and tall it made Joy 
 look! 
 
 Gypsy remembered herself in a minute and 
 threw her arms warmly around Joy's neck. 
 But Joy did not return the embrace, and 
 gave her only one cold kiss. She had in- 
 
 45 
 
ferred from Gypsy's momentary hesitation 
 that she was not glad to see her. 
 
 Gypsy, on her part, thought Joy was proud 
 and disagreeable. Thus the two girls mis- 
 understood each other at the the very be- 
 ginning. 
 
 " I'm real glad to see you," said Gypsy. 
 
 "I thought we never should get here!" 
 said Joy, petulantly. " The cars were so 
 dusty, and your coach jolts terribly. I 
 shouldn't think the town would use such an 
 old thing." 
 
 Gypsy's • face fell, and her welcome grew 
 faint. 
 
 Joy had but little to say at supper. She 
 sat by her father and ate her muffins like a 
 very hungry, tired child — like a very cross 
 child, Gypsy thought. Joy's face was always 
 pale and fretful; in the bright lamplight 
 now, after the exhaustion of the long journey, 
 it had a pinched, unpleasant look. 
 
 "Hem," coughed Tom, over his teacup. 
 46 
 

 Gypsy looked up and 
 their eyes met. That 
 look said unutterable 
 things. 
 
 If it had not been for 
 Mrs. Breynton, that 
 supper would have been 
 a dismal affair. But 
 she had such a cozy, 
 comfortable way about 
 her, that nobody could 
 help being cozy and 
 comfortable if they tried 
 hard for it. After a 
 while, when Mr. Breyn- 
 ton and his brother had gone away into the 
 library for a talk by themselves, and Joy began 
 to feel somewhat rested, she brightened up 
 wonderfully, and became really quite enter- 
 taining in her account of her journey She 
 thought Vermont looked cold and stupid, how- 
 ever, and didn't remember having noticed 
 
much about the mountains, for which Gypsy 
 thought she should never forgive her. 
 
 But there was at least one thing Gypsy 
 found out that evening to like about Joy. 
 She loved her father dearly. One could not 
 help noticing how restless she was while he 
 was out of the room, and how she watched 
 the door for him to come back; how, when 
 he did come, she stole away from her aunt 
 and sat down by him, slipping her hand 
 softly into his. As he had been all her life 
 the most indulgent and patient of fathers, 
 and was going, early to-morrow morning, 
 thousands of miles away from her into thou- 
 sands of unknown dangers, it was no wonder. 
 
 While it was still quite early, Joy proposed 
 going to bed. She was tired, and besides. 
 she wanted to unpack a few of her things. 
 So Gypsy lighted the lamp and went up with 
 her. 
 
 "So I am to sleep with you," said Joy, as 
 they opened the door, in by no means the 
 48 
 
happiest of tones, though they were polite 
 enough. 
 
 "Yes. Mother thought it was better. 
 See, isn't my room pretty? " said Gypsy, 
 eagerly, thinking how pleased Joy would be 
 with the little welcome of its fresh adorn- 
 ments. 
 
 " Oh, is this it?" 
 
 Gypsy stopped short, the hot color rush- 
 ing all over her face. 
 
 "Of course, it isn't like yours. We can't 
 afford marble bureaus and Brussels carpets, 
 but I thought you'd like the maple-leaves, 
 and I brought out the flag on purpose be- 
 cause you were coming." 
 
 " Flag! Where? Oh, yes. I have one ten 
 times as big as that at home," said Joy, and 
 then she too stopped short, for she saw the 
 expression of Gypsy's face. Astonished and 
 puzzled, wondering what she had done, Joy 
 turned away to unpack, when her eye fell 
 on the vase with its gorgeous leaves and 
 
 49 
 
berries, and she cried out in real delight: 
 "O — oh, how pretty! Why, we don't have 
 anything like this in Boston." 
 
 But Gypsy was only half comforted. 
 
 Joy unlocked her trunk then, and for a 
 few minutes they chatted merrily over the 
 unpacking. Where is the girl that doesn't 
 like to look at pretty clothes ? and where 
 is the girl that doesn't like to show them 
 if they happen to be her own? Joy's linen 
 was all of the prettiest pattern, with won- 
 derful trimmings and embroideries such as 
 Gypsy had seldom seen : her collars and 
 undersleeves were of the latest fashion, and 
 fluted with choice laces; her tiny slippers 
 were tufted with velvet bows, and of her 
 nets and hair-ribbons there was no end. 
 Gypsy looked on without a single pang of 
 envy, contrasting them with her own plain, 
 neat things, of course, but glad, in Gypsy's 
 own generous fashion, that Joy had them. 
 
 " I had pretty enough things when you 
 5° 
 
were in Boston," said Joy, unfolding her 
 heavy black dresses with their plain folds of 
 bombazine and crape. " Now I can't wear 
 anything but this ugly black. Then there 
 are all my corals and malachites just good 
 for nothing. Madame St. Denis — she's the 
 dressmaker — said I couldn't wear a single 
 thing but jet, and jet makes me look dread- 
 fully brown." 
 
 Gypsy hung up the dress that was in her 
 hand and walked over to the window. She 
 felt very much as if somebody had been 
 drawing a file across her front teeth. 
 
 She could not have explained what was 
 the matter. Somehow she seemed to see a 
 quick picture of her own mother dying and 
 dead, and herself in the sad, dark dresses. 
 And how Joy could speak so — how she could ! 
 
 "Oh — only two bureau drawers! Why 
 didn't you give me the two upper ones ? " 
 said Joy, presently, when she was ready to 
 put away her collais and boxes. 
 
" Because my things were in there," said 
 Gypsy. 
 
 " But your things were in the lower ones 
 just as much." 
 
 " I like the upper drawers best," said 
 Gypsy, shortly. 
 
 " So do I," retorted Joy. 
 
 The hot color rushed over Gpysy's face 
 for the second time, but now it was a some- 
 what angry color. 
 
 " It wasn't very pleasant to have to give 
 up any, and there are all those wardrobe 
 shelves I ' had to take my things off from 
 too, and I don't think you've any right to 
 make a fuss." 
 
 "That's polite!" said Joy, with a laugh. 
 Gypsy knew it wasn't, but for that very 
 reason she wouldn't say so. 
 
 One more subject of dispute came up 
 almost before this was forgotten. When they 
 were all ready to go to bed, Joy wanted 
 the front side. 
 
 52 
 
" But that's where I always sleep," said 
 Gypsy. 
 
 "There isn't any air over the back side, 
 and I can't breathe," said Joy. 
 
 "Neither can I," said Gypsy. 
 
 " I never can get to sleep if I don't 
 have the place I'm used to," said Joy. 
 
 " You can just as well as I can," said 
 Gypsy. " Besides, it's my bed." 
 
 This last argument appeared to be unan- 
 swerable, and Gypsy had it her way. 
 
 She thought it over before she went to 
 sleep, which was not very soon; for Joy 
 was restless, and tossed on her pillow, and 
 talked in her dreams. Of course the front 
 side and the upper drawers belonged to 
 her — yes, of course. She had only taken 
 her rights. She would be obliged to any- 
 body to show her where she was to blame. 
 
 Joy went to sleep without any thoughts, 
 and therein lay just the difference. 
 

 OMETHING woke Gypsy 
 very early the next 
 morning. She started 
 up, and saw Joy stand- 
 ing by the bed, in the faint, gray light, all 
 dressed and shivering with the cold. 
 "Well, I never! " said Gypsy. 
 "What's the matter? " 
 
 "What on earth, have you got your dress on 
 in the middle of the night for? " 
 " It isn't night; it's morning." 
 " Morning! it isn't any such a thing." 
 " 'Tis, too. I heard the clock strike ftve 
 ever so long ago." 
 
Gypsy had fallen back on the pillow, almost 
 asleep again. She roused herself with a little 
 jump. 
 
 " See here /" 
 
 "Ow! how you frightened me," sa" \ Joy, 
 
 fm 
 
 
 %> 
 
 '■'V, 
 
 ■JmMWAWk 
 
 with another jump. 
 
 "Did I? Oh, well"— 
 silence. "I don't see" — another si 
 lence — "what you wear my rubber — rubber 
 boots for." 
 
 "Your rubber boots! Gypsy Breynton, 
 you're sound asleep." 
 
" Asleep!" said Gypsy, sitting up with a 
 jerk, and rubbing both fists into her eyes. 
 "I'm just as wide awake as you are. Oh, 
 why, you're dressed ! " 
 
 " Ju" t found that out?" Joy broke into a 
 laugh, and Gypsy, now quite awake, joined in 
 it merrily. For the first time a vague notion 
 came to her that she was rather glad Joy 
 came. It might be some fun, after all, to 
 have somebody round all the time to — in 
 that untranslatable girls' phrase — "carry on 
 with." 
 
 " But I don't see what's up," said Gypsy, 
 winking and blinking like an owl to keep 
 her eyes open. 
 
 " Why, I was afraid father' d get off before 
 I was awake, so I was determined he shouldn't. 
 I guess I kept waking up pretty much all 
 night to see if it wasn't time." 
 
 " I wish he didn't have to go," said Gypsy. 
 She felt sorry for Joy just then, seeing this 
 best side of her that she liked. For about a 
 
 S6 
 
minute she wished she 
 had let her have the up- 
 per drawer. 
 
 Joy's father 
 started by a very 
 early train, and it 
 was still hardly 
 light when he sat 
 down to his hurried 
 breakfast, with Joy 
 close by him, that 
 pale, pinched look 
 on her face, and so 
 utterly silent that 
 Gypsy w r as astonished. She would have thought 
 she . cared nothing about her father's going, 
 if she had not seen her standing in the gray 
 light up-stairs. 
 
 " Joyce, my child, you haven't eaten a 
 mouthful," said her father. 
 " I can't." 
 "Come, dear, do, just a little, to please father." 
 
 S7 
 
Joy put a spoonful of tea to her lips, 
 and put it down. Presently there was a 
 great rumbling of wheels outside, and the 
 coachman rang the door-bell. 
 
 "Well, joy." 
 
 Joy stood up, but did not speak. Her 
 father, holding her close in his arms, drew 
 her out with him into the entry. Mrs. 
 Breynton turned away; so did Gypsy and 
 the rest. In a minute they heard Joy go 
 into the parlor and shut the door, and then 
 her father called out to them with his 
 cheerful good-byes, and then he was in the 
 coach, and the door was shut. 
 
 Gypsy stole into the parlor. Joy was stand- 
 ing there alone by the window. 
 
 "Why don't you cry?" said Gypsy; "I 
 would." 
 
 *' I don't want to," said Joy, moving away. 
 
 Her sorrow at parting with her father made 
 
 her fretful that morning. This was Joy's way. 
 
 She had inherited her mother's fashion of tak- 
 
 58 
 
ing trouble. Gypsy did not understand it, and 
 her sympathy cooled a little. Still she really 
 wanted to do something to make her happy, and 
 so she set about it in the only ways she knew. 
 
 "See here, Joy," she called, merrily, after 
 breakfast, "let's come out and have a good 
 time. I have lots and lots to show you out in 
 the barn and round. Then there is all York- 
 bury besides, and the mountains. Which'll 
 you do first, see the chickens or walk out on 
 the ridge-pole? " 
 
 " On the what ? " 
 
 "On the ridge-pole; that's the top of the 
 roof, you know, over the kitchen. Tom and I 
 go out there ever so much." 
 
 "Oh, I'd rather see the chickens. I should 
 think you'd kill yourself walking on roofs. 
 Wait till I get my gloves." 
 
 "Oh, you don't want gloves in Yorkbury" 
 said Gypsy, with a very superior air. " That's 
 nothing but a Boston fashion. Slip on your 
 hat and sack in a jiff, and come along." 
 
 55 
 
"I shall tan my hands," said Joy. reluc- 
 tantly, as they went out. " Besides, I don't 
 know what a jiff is." 
 
 "A jiff is — why, it's short for jiffy, I sup 
 pose." 
 
 " But what's a jiffy? " persisted Joy. 
 
 "Couldn't tell you," said Gypsy, with a 
 bubbling laugh; "I guess it's something that's 
 in a terrible hurry. Tom says it ever so 
 much." 
 
 "I shouldn't think your mother would let 
 you use boys' talk," said Joy. Gypsy some- 
 times stood in need of some such hint as this, 
 but she did not relish it from Joy. By way of 
 reply she climbed up the post of the clothes- 
 line. 
 
 Joy thought the chickens were pretty, but 
 they had such long legs, and such a silly way 
 of squealing when you took them up, as if you 
 were going to murder them. Besides she was 
 afraid she should step on them. So they went 
 into the barn, and Gypsy exhibited Billy and 
 
Bess and Clover with the talent of a Barnum 
 and the pride of a queen. Billy was the old 
 horse who had pulled the family to church 
 through the sand every Sunday since the 
 children were babies, and Bess and Clover 
 were white-starred, gentle-eyed cows, who let 
 Gypsy pull their horns and tickle them with 
 hay, and make pencil-marks on their white 
 foreheads to her heart's content, and looked 
 at Joy's strange face with great musing beau- 
 tiful brown eyes. But Joy was afraid they 
 would hook her, and she didn't like to be in 
 a barn. 
 
 ''What! not tumble on the hay!" cried 
 Gypsy, half way up the ladder into the loft. 
 " Just see what a quantity there is of it. Did 
 you ever know such a quantity? Father lets 
 me jump on it 'cause I don't hurt the hay — 
 very much.". 
 
 No. Joy couldn't possibly climb up the 
 ladder. Well, Gypsy would help her then. 
 By a little maneuvering she persuaded Joy to 
 
step up three rounds, and she herself stood 
 behind her and began to walk up. Joy 
 screamed and stood still. 
 
 "Go ahead; you can't stop now. I'll keep 
 hold of you," said Gypsy, choking with laugh- 
 ter, and walking on. There was nothing for 
 Joy to do but climb, unless she chose to be 
 walked over, so up they went, she screaming 
 and Gypsy pushing all the way. 
 
 " Now all you have to do is just to get up on 
 the beams and jump off," said Gypsy, up there, 
 and peering down from among the cobwebs, 
 and flying through the air, almost before the 
 words were off from her lips. But Joy 
 wouldn't hear of getting into such a dusty 
 place. She took two or three dainty little rolls 
 on the hay, but the dried clover got into her 
 hair and mouth and eyes, and she was per- 
 fectly sure there was a spider down her neck ; 
 so Gypsy was glad at last to get her safely 
 down the ladder and out doors. 
 
 After that they tried the raft. Gypsy's 
 
raft was on a swamp below the orchard, 
 and it was one of her favorite amusements 
 to push herself about over the shallow water. 
 But Joy was afraid of wetting her feet, or 
 getting drowned, or something — she didn't 
 exactly know what, so they gave that up. 
 
 Then Gypsy proposed a game of marbles 
 on the garden path. She played a great 
 deal with Tom, and played well. But Joy 
 was shocked at the idea. That was a boy's 
 play ! 
 
 "What will you do, then?" said Gypsy, 
 a little crossly. Joy replied in the tone of 
 a martyr, that she was sure she did not 
 know. Gypsy coughed, and walked up and 
 down on the garden fence in significant 
 silence. 
 
 Joy was not to go to school till Monday. 
 Meantime she amused herself at home with 
 her aunt, and Gypsy went as usual without 
 her. 
 
 Saturday afternoon was the perfect pattern 
 
 6 3 
 
of an autumn afternoon. A creamy haze 
 softened the sharp outline of the mountains, 
 and lay cloudlike on the fields. The sun- 
 light fell through it like sifted gold, the 
 sky hung motionless and blue — that glow- 
 less, deepening blue that always made Gypsy 
 feel, she said, "as if she must drink it 
 right up " — and away over miles of field 
 and mountain slope the maples crimsoned 
 and flamed. 
 
 Gypsy came home at noon with her hat 
 hanging down her neck, her cheeks on fire, 
 and panting like the old lady who died for 
 want of breath; rushing up the steps, tear- 
 ing open the door, and slamming into the 
 parlor. 
 
 "Look here! — everybody — where are you? 
 What do you think? Joy! Mother! There's 
 going to be a great chestnutting. " 
 
 "A what?" asked Joy, dropping her em- 
 broidery. 
 
 " A chestnutting, up at Mr. Jonathan 
 6 4 
 
Jones's trees, this afternoon at two o'clock. 
 Did you ever hear anything so perfectly 
 mag?" — mag being "Gypsy" for magnificent. 
 
 "Who are to make the party?" asked her 
 mother. 
 
 "Oh, I and Sarah Rowe and Delia Guest 
 and — and Sarah Rowe and I," said Gypsy, 
 talking very fast. 
 
 " And Joy," said Mrs. Breynton, gently. 
 
 "Joy, of course. That's what I came in 
 to say." 
 
 "Oh, I don't care to go if you don't 
 want me," said Joy, with a slighted look. 
 
 "But I do want you. Who said I didn't?" 
 
 " Well," said Joy, somewhat mollified, " I'll 
 go if there aren't any spiders." 
 
 The two girls equipped themselves with 
 tin pails, thick boots and a lunch-basket, 
 and started off in high spirits at precisely 
 half-past one. Joy had a remarkably vague 
 idea of what she was going to do. but she 
 felt unusually good-natured, as who could 
 
 6s 
 
help feeling - , with such a sunlight as that 
 and such distant glories of the maple-trees,, 
 and such shadows melting on the moun- 
 tains ! 
 
 "I want to go chestnotting, too-o-o!" 
 called Winnie, disconsolate, in the doorway. 
 
 "No, Winnie, you couldn't, possibly," said 
 Gypsy, pleasantly, sorry to disappoint him ; 
 but she was quite too well acquainted with 
 Winnie to undertake a nutting party in his 
 company. 
 
 "Oh, yes, do let's take him; he's so cun- 
 ning," said Joy. Joy was totally unused to 
 children, having never had brothers and 
 sisters of her own, and since she had been 
 there, Winnie had not happened to develop 
 in any of his characteristic methods. More- 
 over, he had speedily discovered that Joy 
 laughed at everything he said; even his most 
 ordinary efforts in the line of wit; and that 
 she gave him lumps of sugar when she 
 thought of it; and therefore he had been 
 
on his best behavior whenever she was 
 about. 
 
 " He's so terribly cunning," repeated Joy; 
 " I guess he won't do any hurt." 
 
 " I won't do any hurt," put in Winnie; 
 "I'm real cunnin', Gypsy." 
 
 " You may do as you like, of course," 
 said Gypsy. " I know he will make trouble 
 and spoil all the party, and the girls would 
 scold me 'cause I brought him. I've tried 
 it times enough. If you're a mind to take 
 care of him, I suppose you can; but you see 
 if you don't repent your bargain." 
 
 Gypsy was perfectly right ; she was not 
 apt to be selfish in her treatment of Win- 
 nie. Such a tramp as this was not at all 
 suited to his capacities of feet or temper, 
 and if his mother had been there she would 
 have managed to make him happy in stay- 
 ing home. But Winnie had received quite 
 too much encouragement; he had no thought 
 of giving up his bargain now. 
 67 
 
" Gypsy Breynton, you just needn't talk. 
 I'm goin' chestnotting. I'm five years old. 
 I'm goin' with cousin Joy, and I'll eat just 
 as many chestnots as you or anybody else, 
 now! " 
 
 Gypsy had not the slightest doubt of that, 
 and the three started off together. 
 
 They met Sarah Rowe and Delia on the 
 way, and Gypsy introduced them. 
 
 "This is my cousin Joy, and this is 
 Sarah. That one in the shaker bonnet is 
 Delia Guest. Oh, I forgot. Joy's last name 
 is Breynton, and Sarah is Sarah Rowe." 
 
 Joy bowed in her prim, cityish way, and 
 Sarah and Delia were so much astonished 
 thereat that they forgot to bow at all, and 
 Delia stared rudely at her black dress. 
 There was an awkward silence. 
 
 "Why don't you talk, somebody?" broke 
 out Gypsy, getting desperate. " Anybody'd 
 think we were three mummies in a museum." 
 
 "I don't think you're very perlite," put 
 
in Winnie, with a virtuous frown; "if you 
 don't let me be a dummy, too, I'll tell 
 mother, and that would make four." 
 
 This broke the ice, and Sarah and Delia 
 began to talk very fast about Monday's 
 grammar lesson, and Miss Cardrew, and how 
 Agnes Gaylord put a green snake in Phoebe 
 Hunt's lunch-basket, and had to stay after 
 school for it, and how it was confidently re- 
 ported in mysterious whispers, at recess, that 
 George Castles told Mr. Guernsey he was a 
 regular old fogy, and Mr. Guernsey had sent 
 home a letter to his father — not Mr. Guern- 
 sey's father, but George's; he had now, true's 
 you live. 
 
 Now, to Joy, of course, n^ne of this was 
 very interesting, for she had not been into 
 the schoolroom yet, and didn't know George 
 Castles and Agnes Gaylord from Adam ; and 
 somehow or other it never occurred to Gypsy 
 to introduce some subject in which they could 
 all, take part; and so somehow it came about 
 
 6q 
 
that Joy fell behind with Winnie, and the 
 three girls went on together all the way to 
 Mr. Jones's grove. 
 
 "Isn't it splendid?" called Gypsy, turn- 
 ing around. " I'm having a real nice time." 
 
 "Ye — es," said Joy, dolefully; "I guess I 
 shall like it better when we get to the 
 chestnuts." 
 
 Nothing particular happened on the way, 
 except that when they were crossing Mr. 
 Jonathan's plowed field, Winnie stuck in 
 the mud tight, and when he was pulled out 
 he left his shoes behind him; that he re- 
 peated this pleasing little incident six con- 
 secutive times within five minutes, varying 
 it by lifting up his voice to weep, in Winnie's 
 own accomplished style; and that Joy ended 
 by carrying him in her arms the whole way. 
 
 Be it here recorded that Joy's ideal of 
 "cherubic childhood," Winnie standing as 
 representative cherub, underwent then and 
 there several modifications. 
 
"Here we are!" cried Gypsy at last, clear- 
 ing a low fence with a bound. " Just see 
 the leaves and the sky. Isn't it just — oh ! " 
 
 It was, indeed "just," and there it stopped; 
 there didn't seem to be any more words to 
 say about it. The chestnut-trees were clus- 
 tered on a small, rocky knoll, their golden- 
 brown leaves fluttering in the sunlight, their 
 great, rich, bursting green burs bending down 
 the boughs and dropping to the ground. 
 Around them and among them a belt of 
 maples stood up like blazing torches sharp 
 against the sky — yellow, scarlet, russet, 
 maroon, and crimson veined with blood, all 
 netted and laced together, and floating down 
 upon the wind like shattered jewels. Beyond, 
 the purple mountains, and the creamy haze, 
 md the silent sky. 
 
 It was a sight to make younger and older 
 than these four girls stand still with deepen- 
 ing eyes. For about a half minute nobody 
 spoke, and I venture to say the four dif- 
 
ferent kinds of thoughts they had just then 
 would make a pretty bit of a poem. 
 
 Whatever they were, a fearfully unroman- 
 tic and utterly indescribable howl from Win- 
 nie put an unceremonious end to them. 
 
 "O-oh! ugh! ah! Gypsy! Joy! I've got 
 catched onto my buttons. My head's tippin' 
 over the wrong way. Boo-hoo-hoo ! Gypsy ! " 
 
 The girls turned, and stood transfixed, and 
 screamed till they lost their breath, and laughed 
 till they cried. 
 
 Winnie, not being of a sentimental turn 
 of mind, had regarded unmoved the flaming 
 glories of the maple-leaves, and being in- 
 fluenced by the more earthly attractions of 
 the chestnuts, had conceived the idea of 
 seizing advantage of the girls' unpractical 
 rapture to be the first on the field, and take 
 entire and lawful possession thereof. There- 
 fore had he made all manner of haste to 
 crawl through the fence, and there had he 
 stuck fast between two bars, balanced like 
 
a see-saw, his head going up and his feet 
 going down, his feet going up and his head 
 going down. 
 
 Gypsy pulled him out as well as she could 
 between her spasms of laughter. 
 
 "I don't see any thin' to laugh at," said 
 Winnie, severely. " If you don't stop laughin' 
 I'll go way off into the woods and be a 
 Injun and never come home any more, and 
 build me a house with a chimney to it, 'n' 
 have baked beans for supper 'n' lots of chest- 
 nots, and a gun and a pistol, and I won't 
 give yon any! Goin' to stop laughin'?" 
 
 It did not take long to pick up the nuts 
 that the wind and the frost had already 
 strewn upon the ground, and everybody 
 enjoyed it but Joy. She pricked her unaccus- 
 tomed fingers on the sharp burs, and didn't 
 like the nuts when she had tasted of them. 
 
 " They're not the kind of chestnuts we 
 have in Boston," she said; "ours are soft 
 like potatoes." 
 
"Oh dear, oh dear, she thought they grew 
 boiled ! " and there was a great laugh. Joy 
 colored, and did not relish it very much. 
 Gypsy was too busy pulling oft her burs to 
 notice this. Presently the ground was quite 
 cleared. 
 
 " Now we must climb," said Gypsy. Gypsy 
 was always the leader in their plays; always 
 made all their plans. Sarah Rowe was her 
 particular friend, and thought everything 
 Gypsy did about right, and seldom opposed 
 her. Delia never opposed anybody. 
 
 " Oh, I don't know how to climb," said 
 Joy, shrinking and shocked. 
 
 "But I'll show you. This isn't anything; 
 these branches are just as low as they can 
 be. Here, I'll go first and help you, and 
 Sarah can come next." 
 
 So up went Gypsy, nimble as a squirrel, 
 over the low-hanging boughs that swayed 
 with her weight. 
 
 "Come, Joy! I can't wait." 
 
Joy trembled and screamed, and came. 
 She crawled a little ways up the lowest of 
 the branches, and stopped, frightened by the 
 motion. 
 
 " Catch hold of the upper bough and stand 
 up; then you can walk it," called Gypsy, 
 half out of sight now among the thick 
 leaves. 
 
 Joy did as she was told — her feet slipped, 
 the lower branch swung away from under 
 her, and there she hung by both hands in 
 mid-air. She was not more than four feet 
 from the ground, and could have jumped 
 down without the slightest difficulty, but 
 that she was altogether too frightened to 
 do So she swung back and forth like a 
 lantern, screaming as loud as she could 
 scream. 
 
 Gypsy was peculiarly sensitive to anything 
 funny, and she quite forgot that Joy was 
 really frightened; indeed, used as she was 
 to the science of tree-climbing all her life, 
 
that a girl could hang within four feet of 
 the ground, and not know enough to jump, 
 seemed to her perfectly incomprehensible. 
 
 "Jump, Joy, jump!" she called, between 
 her shouts of laughter. 
 
 "No, no, don't, you might break your 
 arm," cried Delia Guest, who hadn't the 
 slightest scruple about telling a falsehood if 
 she were going to have something to laugh 
 at by the means. Poor Joy was between 
 Scylla and Charybdis. (If you don't know 
 what that means, go and ask your big 
 brothers; make them leave their chess and 
 their newspapers on the spot, and read you 
 what Mr. Virgil has to say about it.) If 
 she hung on she would wrench her arms; 
 if she jumped, she should break them. She 
 hung, screaming, as long as she could, and 
 dropped when she could hang no longer, 
 looking about in an astonishment that was 
 irresistibly funny, at finding herself alive 
 
 and unhurt on the soft moss. 
 
 7 6 
 
The girls were still laughing too hard to 
 talk. Joy stood up with a very red face 
 and began to walk slowly away without a 
 word. 
 
 "Where are you goin? " called Gypsy 
 from the branches. 
 
 "Home," said Joy. 
 
 "Oh, don't; come, we won't laugh any 
 more. Come back, and you needn't climb. 
 You can stay underneath and pick up while 
 we throw down." 
 
 "No; I've had enough of it. I don't bke 
 chestnutting, and I don't like to be laughed 
 at, either. I shan't stay any longer." 
 
 "I'm real sorry," said Gypsy. "I couldn't 
 help laughing at you, you did look so ter- 
 ribly funny. Oh, dear, you ought to have 
 seen yourself! I wish you wouldn't go. If 
 you do, you can find the way alone, I sup- 
 pose." 
 
 " I suppose so," said Joy, doubtfully, 
 
 "Well, you'd better take Winnie; you 
 
know you brought him, and I can't keep 
 him here. It would spoil everything. Why, 
 where is the child?" 
 
 He was nowhere to be seen. 
 
 "Winnie! Win — nie!" 
 
 There was a great splash somewhere, and 
 a curious bubbling sound, but where it came 
 from nobody could tell. All at once Delia 
 broke into something between a laugh and 
 a scream. 
 
 "O — oh, I see! Look there — down in that 
 ditch beyond the elder-bushes — quick!" 
 
 Rising up into the air out of the muddy 
 ground, without any visible support what- 
 ever, were a pair of feet — Winnie's feet, 
 unmistakably, because of their copper toes 
 and tagless shoestrings — and kicking fran- 
 tically back and forth. "Only that and 
 nothing more." 
 
 " Why, where's the — rest of him?" said Joy, 
 blankly. At this instant Gypsy darted past 
 
 her with a sudden movement flew down the 
 
 78 
 
knoll, and began to pull at the mysterious 
 feet as if for dear life. 
 
 "Why, what is she doing?" cried all the 
 girls in a breath. As they spoke, up came 
 Winnie entire into the air, head down, drip- 
 ping, drenched, black with mud, gasping, 
 nearly drowned. 
 
 Gypsy shook him and pounded him on 
 the back till his breath came, and when 
 she found there was no harm done, she 
 set him down on a stone, wiped the mud 
 off from his face, and threw herself down 
 on the grass as if she couldn't stand up 
 another minute. 
 
 "Crying? Why, no; she's laughing. Did 
 you ever? " 
 
 And down ran the girls to see what was 
 the matter. At the foot of the knoll was 
 a ditch of black mud. In the middle of 
 this ditch was a round hole two feet deep, 
 which had been dug at some time to col- 
 lect water for the cattle pasturing in the 
 
field to drink. Into this hole, Winnie, in 
 the course of some scientific investigations 
 as to the depth of the water, had fallen, 
 unfortunately, the wrong end foremost, and 
 there he certainly would have drowned if 
 Gypsy had not seen him just when she did. 
 
 But he was not drowned; on the contrary, 
 except for the mud, "as good as new;" 
 and what might have been a tragedy, and 
 a very sad one, had become, as Gypsy 
 said, "too funny for anything." Winnie, 
 however, "didn't see it," and began to cry 
 lustily to go home. 
 
 "It's fortunate you were just going," said 
 Gypsy. "I'll just fill my pail, and then I'll 
 come along and very likely overtake you." 
 
 Probably Joy didn't fancy this arrangement 
 
 any too well, but she remembered that it was 
 
 her own plan to take the child; therefore she 
 
 said nothing, and she and W'nnie started off 
 
 forlornly enough. 
 
 About five o'clock Gypsy walked slowly up 
 80 
 
the yard with her pail full of nuts, her hat 
 in her hand, and a gay wreath of maple-leaves 
 on her head. With her bright cheeks and 
 twinkling eyes, and the broad leaves casting 
 'heir gorgeous shadows of crimson and gold 
 upon her forehead, she made a pretty picture 
 — almost too pretty to scold. 
 
 Tom met her at the door. Tom was very 
 proud of Gypsy, and you could see in his 
 eyes just then what he thought of her. 
 
 "What a little " he began, all ready for 
 
 a frolic, and stopped, and grew suddenly 
 grave. 
 
 "Where are Joy and Winnie?" 
 
 "Haven't they come?" 
 
 "No." 
 
^SB&Zfc* 
 
 DjSCOVE^hV^ 
 
 YPSY turned very pale. 
 
 "Where are they?" persisted 
 
 Tom. And just then her mother 
 
 came out from the parlor. 
 
 "Why, Gypsy, where are the children?" 
 
 "I'm afraid Joy didn't know the way," said 
 
 Gypsy, slowly. 
 
 "Did you let her come home alone?" 
 
 " Yes'm. She was tired of the chestnuts, 
 
 and Winnie fell into the ditch. Oh, mother ! " 
 
 Mrs. Breynton did not say one word. She 
 
 began to put on her things very fast, and 
 
Tom hurried up to the store for his father. 
 They hunted everywhere, through the fields 
 and in the village; they inquired of every 
 shop-keeper and every passer, but no one 
 had seen a girl in black, with a little boy. 
 There were plenty of girls and an abun- 
 dance of little boys to be found at a great 
 variety of places, but most of the girls wore 
 green-checked dresses, and the boys were in 
 ragged jackets. Gypsy retraced every step 
 of the way^ carefully from the roadside to 
 the chestnut-trees. Mr. Jonathan Jones, de- 
 lighted that he had actually caught somebody 
 on his plowed land, came running down 
 with a terrible scolding on his lips. But 
 when he saw Gypsy's utterly wretched face 
 and heard her story, he helped her instead 
 to search the chestnut grove and the sur- 
 rounding fields all over. But there was not 
 a flutter of Joy's black dress, not an echo 
 of Winnie's cry. The sunset was fading fast 
 in the west, long shadows were slanting down 
 83 
 
the valley, and the blaze of the maples was 
 growing faint. On the mountains it was quite 
 blotted out by the gathering darkness. 
 
 ''What shall I do?" cried Gypsy, think- 
 ing, with a great sinking at her heart, how 
 cold the nights were now, and how early it 
 grew quite dark. 
 
 " Hev you been 'long that ere cross-road 
 't opens aout through the woods onto the 
 three-mile square?" asked Mr. Jonathan. 
 " I've been a thinkin' on't as heow the young 
 uns might ha took that ere ef they was flus- 
 tered beout knowin' the way neow mos' 
 likely." 
 
 " Oh, what a splendid, good man you are! " 
 said Gypsy, jumping up and down, and clap- 
 ping her hands with delight. " Nobody 
 thought of that, and I'll never run over your 
 plowed-up land again as long as ever I live, 
 and I'm going right to tell father, and you 
 see if I do! " 
 
 Her father wondered that they had not 
 84 
 
thought of it, and old Billy was harnessed in 
 a hurry, and they started for the three-mile 
 cross-roads. Gypsy went with them. Nobody 
 spoke to her except to ask questions now and 
 then as to the precise direction the children 
 took, and the time they started for home. 
 Gpysy leaned back in the carriage, peering out 
 into the gloom on either side, calling Joy's 
 name now and then, or Winnie's, and busy 
 with her own wretched thoughts. Whatever 
 they were, she did not very soon forget 
 them. 
 
 It was very dark now, and very cold; the 
 crisp frost glistened on the grass, and an 
 ugly-looking red moon peered over the moun- 
 tain. It seemed to Gypsy like a great, glar- 
 ing eye, that was singling her out and fol- 
 lowing her, and asking, " Where are Joy 
 and Winnie?" over and over. "Gypsy 
 Breynton, Gypsy Breynton, where are Joy 
 and Winnie? " She turned around with her 
 back to it, so as not to see it. 
 
Once they passed an old woman on the 
 road hobbling along with a stick. Mr. 
 Breynton reined up and asked if she had 
 seen anything of two children. 
 
 "Haow?"said the old woman. 
 
 "Have you seen anything of two children 
 along here?" 
 
 " Chilblains? No, I don't have none this 
 time o' year, an' I don't know what business 
 it is o' yourn, nuther." 
 
 "Children!" shouted Mr. Breynton; "two 
 children, a boy and a girl." 
 
 " Speak a little louder, can't you? I'm. 
 deaf," said the old woman. 
 
 " Have you — seen anything — of — two — ■ 
 children — a little boy, and a girl in black? " 
 
 "Chickens? black chickens?" said the old 
 woman, with an angry shake of the head; 
 "no, I hain't got no chickens for yer. My 
 pullet's white, and I set a heap on't an' 
 wouldn't sell it to nobody as come askin' 
 oncivil questions of a lone, lorn widdy. Be- 
 
sides, the cat eat it up las' week, feathers 
 V all." 
 
 Mr. Breynton concluded there was not 
 much information to be had in that quarter, 
 and drove on. 
 
 A little way farther they came across a 
 small boy turning somersets in the ditch. 
 Mr. Breynton stopped again and repeated his 
 questions. 
 
 "How many of 'em?" asked the boy, with 
 a thoughtful look. 
 
 " Two, a boy and a girl." 
 
 "Two?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 "A boy and a girl? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 ' ' You said one was a boy and t'other was 
 a girl?" repeated the small boy, looking 
 very bright. 
 
 "Yes. The boy was quite small, and the 
 girl wore a black dress. They're lost, an el 
 we're trying to find them." 
 8 7 
 
"Be you, now, really!" said the small 
 boy, apparently struck with sudden and over- 
 whelming admiration. " That is terribly 
 good in you. Seems to me now I reckon I 
 see two young uns 'long here somewhars, 
 didn't I ? Le' me see." 
 
 "Oh, where, where?" cried Gypsy. "Oh, 
 I'm so glad! Did the little boy have on a 
 plaid jacket and brown coat? " 
 
 "Waal, now, seems as ef 'twas somethin' 
 like that." 
 
 "And the girl wore a hat and a long 
 veil?" pursued Gypsy, eagerly. 
 
 " Was she about the height of this girl 
 here, and whereabouts did you see her ? " 
 asked Tom. 
 
 "Waal, couldn't tell exactly; somewhars 
 between here an' the village, I reckon. 
 Seems to me she did have a veil or suthin'." 
 
 "And she was real pale?" cried Gypsy, 
 "and the boy was dreadfully muddy?" 
 
 "Couldn't say as to that" — the small boy 
 
began to hesitate and look very wise — "don't 
 seem to remember the mud, and on the 
 whole, I ain't partiklar sure 'bout the veil. 
 Oh, come to think on't, it wasn't a gal; it 
 was a deaf old woman, an' there warn't no 
 boy noways." 
 
 Well was it for the small boy that, as the 
 carriage rattled on, he took good care to be 
 out of the reach of Tom's whip-lash. 
 
 It grew darker and colder, and the red 
 moon rode on silently in the sky. They had 
 come now to the opening of the cross-road, 
 but there were no signs of the children — 
 only the still road and the shadows under 
 the trees. 
 
 "Hark! what's that?" said Mr. Breynton, 
 suddenly. He stopped the carriage, and they 
 all listened. A faint, sobbing sound broke 
 the silence. Gypsy leaned over the side of 
 the carriage, peering in among the trees 
 where the shadow was blackest. 
 
 "Father, may I get out a minute ? " 
 
She sprang over the wheel, ran into the 
 cross-road, into a clump of bushes, pushed 
 them aside, screamed for joy. 
 
 "Here they are, here they are — quick, 
 quick! Oh, Winnie Breynton, do just wake 
 up and let me look at you! Oh, Joy, I am 
 so glad! " 
 
 And there on the ground, true enough, 
 sat Joy, exhausted and frightened and sob- 
 bing, with Winnie sound asleep in her lap. 
 
 " I didn't know the way, and Winnie kept 
 telling me wrong, and, oh, I was so tired, 
 and I sat down to rest, and it is so dark, 
 and — and oh, I thought nobody'd ever come ! " 
 
 And poor Joy sprang into her uncle's arms, 
 and cried as hard as she could cry. 
 
 Joy was thoroughly tired and chilled; it 
 seemed that she had had to carry Winnie in 
 her arms a large part of the way, and the 
 child was by no means a light weight. Evi- 
 dently, Master Winnie had taken matters 
 pretty comfortably throughout, having had, 
 
Joy said, the utmost confidence in his own 
 piloting, declaring ' ; it was just the next 
 house, right around^ the corner, Joy; how 
 stupid in her not to know! he knew all 
 the whole of it just as well as anything," 
 and was none the worse for the adventure. 
 Gypsy tried to wake him up, but he doubled 
 up both fists in his dream, and greeted her 
 with the characteristic reply, ''Naughty!" 
 and that was all that was to be had from 
 him. So he was rolled up warmly on the 
 carriage floor; they drove home as fast as 
 Billy would go, and the two children, after 
 a hot supper and a great many kisses, were 
 put snugly to bed. 
 
 After Joy was asleep, Mrs. Breynton said 
 she would like to see Gypsy a few moments 
 downstairs. 
 
 " Yes'm," said Gypsy, and came slowly 
 down. They sat down in the dining-room 
 alone. Mrs. Breynton drew up her rocking- 
 chair by the fire, and Gypsy took the cricket. 
 
There was a silence. Gypsy had an un- 
 comfortable feeling that her mother was 
 waiting for her to speak first. She kicked 
 off her slipper, and put it on; she rattled 
 the tongs, and pounded the hearth with the 
 poker; she smoothed her hair out of her 
 eyes, and folded up her handkerchief six 
 times; she looked up sideways at her mother; 
 then she began to cough. At last she broke 
 out — 
 
 "I suppose you want me to say I'm sorry. 
 Well, I am. But I don't see why I'm to 
 blame, I'm sure." 
 
 " I haven't said you were to blame," said 
 her mother, quietly. "You know I have had 
 no time yet to hear what happened this 
 afternoon, and I thought you would like to 
 tell me." 
 
 "Well," said Gypsy, "I'd just as lief;" 
 and Gypsy looked a little, a very little, as 
 if she hadn't just as lief at all. "You see, 
 ' in the first place and commencing, ' as Win- 
 
nie says, Joy wanted to take him. Now, she 
 doesn't know anything about that child, not 
 a thing, and if she'd taken him to places 
 as much as I have, and had to lug him 
 home screaming all the way, I guess she 
 would have stopped wanting to, pretty quick, 
 and I always take Winnie when I can, you 
 know now, mother; and then Joy wouldn't 
 talk going over, either." 
 
 "Whom did she walk with?" interrupted 
 Mrs. Breynton. 
 
 "Why, with Winnie, I believe. Of course 
 she might have come on with Sarah and 
 Delia and me if she'd wanted to, but — I 
 don't know " 
 
 " Very well," said Mrs. Breynton, "go on." 
 
 "Then, you see, Joy didn't like chestnuts, 
 and couldn't climb, and — oh, Winnie kept 
 losing his shoes, and got stuck in the fence, 
 and you never saw anything so funny ! And 
 then Joy couldn't climb, and she just hung 
 there swinging; and now, mother, I couldn't 
 
 93 
 
help laughing to save me, it was so exactly 
 like a great pendulum with hoops on. Well. 
 Joy was mad 'cause we laughed and all. and 
 so she said she'd go home. Then — let me 
 see — oh, it was after that, Winnie tumbled 
 into the ditch, splash in ! with his feet up 
 in the air, and I thought I should go off to 
 see him." 
 
 "But what about Joy?" 
 
 "Oh, well, Joy took Winnie — he was so 
 funny and muddy, you don't know — 'cause 
 she brought him, you know, and so they 
 came home, and I thought she knew the 
 way as much as could be, and I guess that's 
 all." 
 
 "Well," said her mother, after a pause, 
 '"what do you think about it?" 
 
 "About what?" 
 
 " Do you think you have done just right, 
 Gypsy ? " 
 
 " I don't see why not," said Gypsy, un- 
 easily. "It was perfectly fair Joy should 
 
take Winnie, and of course I wasn't bound 
 to give up my nuttingi party and come home, 
 just for her." 
 
 "I'm not speaking of what is fair, Gypsy. 
 Strictly speaking, Joy had her rights, and 
 you had yours, and the arrangement might 
 have been called fair enough. But what do 
 you think honestly, Gypsy — were you a 
 little selfish ? " 
 
 Gypsy opened her eyes wide. Honestly 
 she might have said she didn't know. She 
 was by nature a generous child, and the 
 charge of selfishness was seldom brought 
 against her. Plenty of faults she had, but 
 they were faults of quick temper and care- 
 lessness. Of deliberate selfishness it had 
 scarcely ever occurred to her that anybody 
 could think her capable. So she echoed — 
 
 " Selfish ! " in simple surprise. 
 
 "Just look at it," said her mother, gently; 
 " Joy was your visitor, a stranger, feeling 
 awkward and unhappy, most probably, with 
 
the girls whom you knew so well, and not 
 knowing anything- about the matters whi^h 
 you talked over. You might, might you not, 
 have by a little effort made her soon feel st 
 home and happy? Instead of that, you went 
 off with the girls, and let her fall behind, 
 with nobody but Winnie to talk to." 
 
 Gypsy's face turned to a sudden crimson. 
 
 "Then, a nutting party was a new thing 
 tc Joy, and with the care of Winnie and all, 
 it is no wonder she did not find it very 
 pleasant, and she had never climbed a tree 
 in her life. This was her first Saturday after- 
 noon in Yorkbury, and she was, no doubt, 
 feeling" lonely and homesick, and it made her 
 none the happier to be laughed at for not 
 doing something she had not the slightest 
 idea how to do. Was it quite generous ix. 
 let her start off alone, over a strange road, 
 with the care of a crying " 
 
 "And muddy," put in Gypsy, with twink- 
 ling eyes, " from head to foot, black as a shoe." 
 
 9 6 
 
"And muddy child?" finished Mrs. Breyn- 
 ton, smiling in spite of herself. 
 
 " But Joy wanted to take him, and I told 
 her so. It was her own bargain." 
 
 I know that. But we are not 
 
 speaking of bargains, Gypsy; we 
 
 are speaking of what is kind and 
 
 generous. Now, ho w 
 
 does it strike you?" 
 
 " It strikes me," 
 
 said Gypsy, in her 
 
 honest way, after a 
 
 moment's pause — 
 
 "it strikes me that I'm a 
 
 horrid selfish old thing, 
 
 and I ve lived twelve years 
 
 and just found it out; there now ! " 
 
 Just as Gypsy was going to bed she turned 
 
 around with the lamp in her hand, her great eyes 
 
 dreaming away in the brownest of brown studies. 
 
 " Mother, is it selfish to have upper drawers, 
 
 and front sides, and things?" 
 
 97 
 
"What are you talking about, Gypsy?" 
 
 " Why, don't my upper drawers, and the 
 front side of the bed, and all that, belong to 
 me, and must I give them up to Joy?" 
 
 4 It is not necessary," said her mother, 
 laughing. But Gypsy fancied there was a 
 slight emphasis on the last word. 
 
 Joy was sound asleep, and dreaming that 
 Winnie was a rattlesnake and Gypsy a prairie- 
 dog, when somebody gave her a little pinch 
 and woke her up. 
 
 '•'Oh — why — what's the matter?" said Joy. 
 
 " Look here, you might just as well have 
 the upper bureau drawers, you know, and I 
 don't care anything about the front side of 
 the bed. Besides, I wish I hadn't let you 
 come home alone this afternoon." 
 
 "Well, you arc the funniest ! " said Joy. 
 
N Monday Joy went to school. 
 Gypsy had been somewhat aston- 
 ished, a little hurt, and a little 
 angry, at hearing her say, one 
 day, that she "didn't think it was a fit 
 place for her to go — a high school where 
 all the poor people went." 
 
 But, fit or not, it was the the only school 
 to be had, and Joy must go. Perhaps, or 
 <*ome accounts, Mrs. Breynton would have 
 
preferred sending the children to a private 
 school; but the only one in town, and the 
 one which Gypsy had attended until this term, 
 was broken up by the marriage of the teacher, 
 so she had no choice in the matter. The 
 boys at the high school were, some of them, 
 rude, but the girls for the most part were 
 quiet, well-behaved, and lady-like, and the 
 instruction was undoubtedly vastly superior to 
 that of a smaller school. As Gypsy said, 
 "you had to put into it and study like 
 everything, or else she gave you a horrid old 
 black mark, and then you felt nice when it 
 was read aloud at examination, didn't you? " 
 
 " I wouldn't care," said Joy. 
 
 "Why, Joyce Miranda Breynton ! " said 
 Gypsy. But Joy declared she wouldn't, and 
 it was very soon evident that she didn't. She 
 had not the slightest fancy for her studies; 
 neither had Gypsy, for that matter; but 
 Gypsy had been brought up to believe it 
 was a disgrace to get bad marks. Joy had 
 
not. She hurried through her lessons in the 
 quickest possible fashion, anyhow, so as to 
 get through, and out to play; and limped 
 through her recitations as well as she could. 
 Once Gypsy saw — and she was thoroughly 
 shocked to see — Joy peep into the leaves of 
 her grammar when Miss Cardrew's eyes 
 were turned the other way. 
 
 Altogether, matters did not go on very 
 comfortably. Joy's faults were for the most 
 part those from which Gypsy was entirely 
 free, and to which she had a special and 
 inborn aversion. On the other hand, many 
 of Gypsy's failings were not natural to Joy. 
 Gypsy was always forgetting things she 
 ought to remember. Joy seldom did. Gypsy 
 was thoughtless, impulsive, always into mis- 
 chief, out of it, sorry for it, and in again. 
 Joy did wrong deliberately, as she did every- 
 thing else, and did not become penitent in 
 a hurry. Gypsy's temper was like a flash 
 of lightning, hot and fierce and melting 
 
right away in the softest of summer rains. 
 When Joy was angry she sulked. Joy was 
 precise and neat about everything. Gypsy 
 was not. Then Joy kept still, and Gypsy 
 talked; Joy told parts of stories, Gypsy told 
 the whole; Joy had some foolish notions 
 about money and dresses and jewelry, on 
 which Gypsy looked with the most supreme 
 contempt — not on the dresses, but the no- 
 tions. Therefore there was plenty of material 
 for rubs and jars, and of all sad things to 
 creep into a happy house, these rubs and 
 jars are the saddest. 
 
 One day both the girls woke full of mis- 
 chief. It was a bracing November day, 
 cool as an ice-cream and clear as a whistle. 
 The air sparkled like a fountain of golden 
 sands, and was as full of oxygen as it could 
 hold; and oxygen, you must know, is at the 
 bottom of a great deal of the happiness and 
 misery, goodness and badness, of this world. 
 
 '' I tell you if I don't feel like cutting 
 
up ! " said Gypsy, M WJr on the way to 
 school. Gypsy *rf0K/b* didn't look unlike 
 "cutting up" either, walking along there with 
 her satchel swung over her left shoulder, her 
 turban set all askew on her bright, black hair, 
 her cheeks flushed from the jumping of fences 
 and running of races that had been going on 
 since she left the house, and that saucy twinkle 
 in her eyes. Joy was always somewhat more 
 
demure, but she looked, too, that morning, 
 as if she were quite as ready to have a good 
 time as any other girl. 
 
 " Do you know," said Gypsy, confidentially, 
 as they went up the schoolhouse steps, " I 
 feel precisely as if I should make Miss Car- 
 drew a great deal of trouble to-day; don't 
 you?" 
 
 "What does she do to you if you do?" 
 " Oh, sometimes she keeps you after 
 school, and then again she tells Mr. Guern- 
 sey, and then there are the bad marks. 
 Miss Melville — she's my old teacher that 
 married Mr. Hallam, she was just silly 
 enough! — well, she used to just look at you, 
 and never open her lips, and I guess you 
 
 wished you hadn't pretty quick." 
 
 It was very early yet, but quite a crowd 
 was gathered in the schoolhouse, as was the 
 fashion on cool mornings. The boys were 
 stamping noisily over the desks, and grouped 
 about the stove in No. i. No. i. was the 
 
large room where the whole school gathered 
 for prayer. A few of the girls were there 
 — girls who laughed rudely and talked 
 loudly, none of them Gypsy's friends. Tom 
 never liked to have Gypsy linger about in 
 No. i, before or after school hours; he said 
 it was not the place for her, and Tom was 
 there that morning, knotting his handsome 
 brows up into a very decided frown, when 
 he saw her in the doorway, with Joy 
 peeping over her shoulder. So Gypsy — 
 somewhat reluctantly, it must be confessed, 
 for the boys seemed to be having a good 
 time, and with boys' good times she had a 
 most unconquerable sympathy — went up with 
 Joy into Miss Cardrew's recitation room. 
 Nobody was there. A great, empty school- 
 room, with its rows of silent seats and 
 closed desks, with power to roam whitherso- 
 ever you will, and do whatsoever you 
 choose, is a great temptation. The girls ran 
 over the desks, and looked into the desks. 
 
jumped over the settees, and knocked down 
 the settees, put out the fire and built it up 
 again, from the pure luxury of doing what 
 the} 7 wanted to, in a place where they usually 
 had to do what they didn't want to. They 
 sat in Miss Cardrew's chair, and peeped into 
 her desk; they ate apples and snapped pea- 
 nut shells on the very platform where sat 
 the spectacled and ogre-eyed committee on 
 examination days; they drew all manner of 
 pictures of funny old women without any 
 head, and old men ,,T ithout any feet, on the 
 awful blackboard, ana played ''tag" round the 
 globes. Then they stopped for want of breath. 
 
 "I wish there were something to do," 
 sighed Gypsy; "something real splendid and 
 funny." 
 
 " I knew a girl once, and she drew a pic- 
 ture of the teacher on the board in green 
 chalk," suggested Joy; "only she lost her 
 recess for a whole week after it." 
 
 "That wouldn't do. Besides, pictures are 
 
too common; everybody does those. Boys put 
 pins in the seats, and cut off the legs of the 
 teacher's chair, and all that. I don't know as I 
 care to tumble Miss Cardrew over — wouldn't she 
 look funny, though! — 'cause mother wouldn't 
 like it. Couldn't we make the stove smoke, 
 or put pepper in the desks, or — let me see." 
 
 "Dress up something somehow," said Joy; 
 "•there's the poker." 
 
 Gypsy shook her head. 
 
 " Delia Guest did that last term, 'n' the 
 old thing — I mean the poker, not Delia — went 
 flat down in the corner behind the stove — 
 flat, just as Miss Melville was coming in, and 
 lay there in the wood-pile, and nobody knew 
 there was a single sign of a thing going on. 
 I guess you better believe Delia felt cheap! — 
 hark! what's that?" 
 
 It was a faint miaow down in the yard. 
 The girls ran to the window and looked out. 
 
 " A kitten!" 
 
 "The very thing!" 
 
 107 
 
"I'm going right down to get her." 
 
 Down they ran, both of them, in a great 
 hurry, and brought the creature up. The 
 poor thing was chilled, and hungry, and 
 frightened. They took her up to the stove, 
 and Gypsy warmed her in her apron, and 
 Joy fed her with cookies from her lunch- 
 basket, till she curled her head under her 
 paws with a merry purr, all ready for a nap. 
 and evidently without the slightest suspicion 
 that Gypsy's lap was not foreordained, and 
 created for her especial habitation as long as 
 she might choose to remain there. 
 
 " Joy," said Gypsy, suddenly, " I've thought 
 of something." 
 . " So have I." 
 
 "To dress her " 
 
 "Up in a handkerchief." 
 
 " And things." 
 
 " I know it." 
 
 "And put her " 
 
 "Yes! into Miss Cardrew's desk!" 
 
"Won't it be just " 
 
 "Splendid! Hurry up!" 
 
 They "hurried up" in good earnest, chok- 
 ing down their laughter so that nobody 
 downstairs might hear it. Joy took her 
 pretty, purple-bordered handkerchief and tied 
 it over the poor kitten's head like a nightcap, 
 so tight that, pull and scratch as she might, 
 pussy could not get it off. Gypsy's black 
 silk apron was tied about her, like a long 
 baby-dress, a pair of mittens were fastened 
 on her arms, and a pink silk scarf around 
 her throat. When all was done, Gypsy held 
 her up, and trotted her on her knee. Any- 
 body who has ever dressed up a cat like a 
 baby, knows how indescribably funny a sight 
 it is. It seemed as if the girls could never 
 stop laughing— it does not take much to 
 make girls laugh. At last there was a com- 
 motion in the entry below. 
 
 "It's the girls! — quick, quick!' 
 
 Gypsy, trying to get up, tripped on her 
 
dress and fell, and away flew the kitten, all 
 tangled in the apron, making for the door 
 as fast as an energetic kitten could go. 
 
 "She'll be downstairs, and maybe Miss 
 Cardrew's there! Oil!" 
 
 Joy sprang after the creature, caught her 
 by the very tip end of her tail just as she 
 was preparing to pounce down the stairs, and 
 ran with her to Miss Cardrew's desk. 
 
 "Put her in — quick, quick!" 
 
 " O-oh, she won't lie still!" 
 
 " Where's the lunch-basket? Give me some 
 biscuit — there! I hear them on the stairs!" 
 
 The kitten began to mew piteously, strug- 
 gling to get out with all her might. Down 
 went the desk-cover on her paws. 
 ■ "There now, lie still! Oh, hear her mew! 
 What shall we do?" 
 
 Quick footsteps were on the stairs — half- 
 way up; merry laughter, and a dozen 
 voices. 
 
 " Here's the biscuit. Here, kitty, kitty, 
 
poor kit-ty, do please to lie still and eat it! 
 Oh, Joy Breynton, did you ever?" 
 
 ''There, she's eating - !" 
 
 "Shut the desk — hurry!" 
 
 When the girls came in. Joy and Gypsy 
 were in their seats, looking over the arith- 
 metic lesson. Joy's book was upside down, and 
 Gypsy was intensely interested in the preface. 
 
 Miss Cardrew came in shortly after, and 
 stood warming her fingers at the stove, nod- 
 ding and smiling at the girls. All was still 
 so far in the desk. Miss Cardrew went up 
 and laid down her gloves and pushed back 
 her chair. Joy coughed under her breath, 
 and Gypsy looked up out of the corners of 
 her eyes. 
 
 "Mr. Guernsey is not well to-day," began 
 Miss Cardrew, standing by the desk, "and 
 we shall not be able to meet as usual in No. 
 i for prayers. It has been thought best that 
 each department should attend devotions in 
 its own room. You can get out your Bibles." 
 
Gypsy looked at Joy, and Joy looked at 
 Gypsy. 
 
 Miss Cardrew sat down. It was very still. 
 A muffled scratching sound broke into the 
 pause. Miss Cardrew looked up careless- 
 ly, as if to see where it came from; it 
 stopped. 
 
 " She'll open her desk now," whispered 
 Joy, stooping to pick up a book. 
 
 " See here, Joy, I almost wish we 
 hadn't " 
 
 ' ' We will read the fourteenth chapter of 
 John," spoke up Miss Cardrew, with her 
 Bible in her hand. No, she hadn't opened 
 her desk. The Bible lay upon the outside 
 of it. 
 
 " Oh, if that biscuit' 11 only last till she 
 gets through praying!" 
 
 "Hush-sh! She's looking this way." 
 
 Miss Cardrew began to read. She had read 
 just four verses, when — 
 
 " Miaow! " 
 
Gypsy and Joy were trying very hard to 
 iind the place. Miss Cardrew looked up and 
 around the room. It was quite still. She 
 read two verses more. 
 
 "Mi-aow! mi-aow-aow!" 
 
 Miss Cardrew looked up again, round the 
 room, over the platform, under the desk, 
 everywhere but in it. 
 
 "Girls, did any of you make that sound?" 
 
 Nobody had. Miss Cardrew began to read 
 again. All at once Joy pulled Gypsy's 
 sleeve. 
 
 "Just look there!" 
 
 "Where?" 
 
 "Trickling down the outside of the desk!" 
 
 "You don't suppose she's upset the " 
 
 " Ink-bottle — yes." 
 
 Miss Cardrew was in the tenth verse, and 
 the room was very still. Right into the 
 stillness there broke again a distinct, pro- 
 longed, dolorous — 
 
 " Mi-aow-tftw /" 
 
 US 
 
And this time Miss Cardrew laid down 
 her Bible and lifted the desk-cover. 
 
 It is reported in school to this day that 
 Miss Cardrew jumped. 
 
 Out flew the kitten, like popped corn from 
 a shovel, glared over the desk in the night- 
 cap and black apron, leaped down, and flew, 
 all dripping with ink, down the aisle, out of 
 the door, and bouncing downstairs like an 
 India-rubber ball. 
 
 Delia Guest and one or two of the other 
 girls screamed. Miss Cardrew flung out 
 some books and papers from the desk. It 
 was too late; they were dripping, and 
 drenched, and black. The teacher quietly 
 wiped some spots of ink from her pretty 
 blue merino, and there was an awful silence. 
 
 "Girls," said Miss Cardrew then, in her 
 grave, stern way, "who did this?" 
 
 Nobody answered. 
 
 "Who put that cat in my desk?" repeated 
 Miss Cardrew. 
 
It was perfectly still. Gypsy's cheeks were 
 scarlet. Joy was looking carelessly about the 
 room, scanning the taces of the girls, as if 
 she were trying to find out who was the 
 guilty one. 
 
 "It is highly probable that the cat tied 
 herself into an apron, opened the desk and 
 shut the cover down on herself," said Miss 
 Cardrew; "we will look into this matter. 
 Delia Guest, did you put her in?" 
 
 "No'm — he, he! I guess I — ha, ha! — 
 didn't," said Delia. 
 
 "Next!" — and down the first row went 
 Miss Cardrew, asking the same question of 
 every girl, and the second row, and the 
 third. Gypsy sat on the end of the fourth 
 settee. 
 
 "Gypsy Breynton, did you put the kitten 
 in my desk? " 
 
 "No'm, I didn't," said Gypsy; which was 
 true enough. It was Joy who did that part 
 of it. 
 
''Did you have anything to do with the 
 matter, Gypsy? " Perhaps Miss Cardrew re- 
 membered that Gypsy had had something to 
 do with a few other similar matters since 
 she had been in school. 
 
 "Yes'm," said honest Gypsy, with crimson 
 face and hanging head, " I did." 
 
 "What did you do? " 
 
 " I put on the apron and the tippet, and 
 — I gave her the biscuit. I — thought she'd 
 keep still till prayers were over," said 
 Gypsy, faintly. 
 
 "But you did not put her in the desk?" 
 
 "No'm. 
 
 "And you know who did?" 
 
 " Yes'm." 
 
 Miss Cardrew never asked her scholars to 
 tell of each other's wrong-doings. If she 
 had, it would have made no difference to 
 Gypsy. She had shut up her lips tight and 
 not another word would she have said for 
 anybody. She had told the truth about her- 
 
self, but she was under no obligations to 
 bring Joy into trouble. Joy might do as 
 she liked. 
 
 "Gypsy Breynton will lose her recesses for 
 a week and stay an hour after school to- 
 night," said Miss Cardrew. "Joy, did you 
 put the kitten in my desk?" 
 
 "No, ma'am," said Joy, boldly. 
 
 "Nor have anything to do with it?" 
 
 " No, ma'am," said Joy, without the slight- 
 est change of color. 
 
 "Next! — Sarah Rowe." 
 
 Of course Sarah had not, nor anybody 
 else. Miss Cardrew let the matter drop 
 there and went on with her reading. 
 
 Gypsy sat silent and sorry, her eyes on 
 her Testament. Joy tried to whisper some- 
 thing to her once, but Gypsy turned away 
 with a gesture of impatience and disgust- 
 This thing Joy had done had shocked her 
 so that she felt as if she could not bear 
 the sight of her face or touch of her hand. 
 
Never since she was a very little child had 
 Gypsy been known to say what was not 
 true. All her words were like her eyes — 
 clear as sunbeams. 
 
 At dinner Joy did all the talking-. Mrs. 
 Breynton asked Gypsy what was the matter, 
 but Gypsy said "Nothing." If Joy did not 
 choose to tell of the matter, she would not. 
 
 "What makes you so cross?" said Joy in 
 the afternoon; "nobody can get a word out 
 of you, and you don't look at me any 
 more than if I weren't here." 
 
 "I don't see how you can ask sach a 
 question ! " exploded Gypsy, with flashing eyes. 
 '• You know what you've done as well as I 
 do." 
 
 "No, I don't," grumbled Joy; "just 'cause 
 I didn't tell Miss Cardrew about that horrid 
 old cat — I wish we'd let the ugly thing 
 alone! — I don't see why you need treat me 
 as if I'd been murdering somebody and 
 were going to be hung for it. Besides, I 
 
said 'Over the left' to myself just after 
 I'd told her, and / didn't want to lose my 
 recess if you did." 
 
 Gypsy shut up her pink lips tight, and 
 made no answer. 
 
 Joy went out to play at recess, and Gypsy 
 stayed in alone and studied. Joy went home 
 with the girls in a great frolic after school, 
 and Gypsy stayed shut up in the lonely 
 schoolroom for an hour, disgraced and mis- 
 erable. But I have the very best of reasons 
 for thinking that she wasn't nearly as miser- 
 able as Joy. 
 
 Just before supper the two girls were sit- 
 ting drearily together in the dining-room, 
 when the door-bell rang. 
 
 "It's Miss Cardrew!" said Joy, looking out 
 of the window; "what do you suppose she 
 wants?" 
 
 Gypsy looked up carelessly; she didn't very 
 much care. She had told Miss Cardrew all 
 she had to tell and received her punishment. 
 
As for her mother, she would have gone to 
 her with the whole story that noon, if it 
 hadn't been for Joy's part in it. 
 
 "What is that she has in her hand, I 
 wonder?" said Joy uneasily, peeping through 
 a crack in the door as Miss Cardrew passed 
 through the entry; "why, I declare! if it 
 isn't a handkerchief, as true as you live — 
 all — inky! " 
 
 When Miss Cardrew had gone, Mrs. Breyn- 
 ton came out of the parlor with a very 
 grave face, a purple-bordered handkerchief 
 in her hand; it was all spotted with ink, 
 and the initials J. M. B. were embroidered 
 on it. 
 
 "Joy." 
 • Joy came out of the corner slowly. 
 
 "Come here a minute." 
 
 Joy went and the door was shut. Just 
 what happened that next half hour Gypsy 
 never knew. Joy came upstairs at the end 
 of it, red-eyed and crying, and gentle. 
 
Gypsy was standing by the window. 
 
 " Gypsy." 
 
 ''Well." 
 
 "I love auntie dearly, now I guess I do." 
 
 " Of course," said Gypsy; "everybody 
 does." 
 
 "I hadn't the least idea it was so wicked — 
 not the least idea. Mother used to " 
 
 But Joy broke off suddenly, with quiver- 
 ing, crimson lips. 
 
 What that mother used to do Gypsy never 
 asked; Joy never told her — either then, or 
 at any other time. 
 
er-vn- 
 
 t 
 
 € eAce * 
 IfoAYTtiomes 
 
 ROOM:- 
 
 TIS, too." 
 "It isn't, either." 
 " I know just as well as you." 
 " No you don't any such a thing. 
 You've lived up here in this old country place 
 all your life, and you don't know any more 
 about the fashions than Mrs. Surly." 
 
 "But I know it's perfectly ridiculous to 
 rig up in white chenille and silver pins. 
 when anybody's in such deep mourning as 
 you. / wouldn't do it for anything." 
 
 "I'll take care of myself, if you please 
 miss." 
 
 "And /know another thing, too." 
 
-'You do? A whole thing?" 
 
 " Yes, I do. I know you're just as proud 
 as you can be, and I've heard more'n one 
 person say so. All the girls think you're 
 dreadfully stuck up about your dresses and 
 things — so there ! " 
 
 "I don't care what the girls think, or you 
 either. I guess I'll be glad when father 
 comes home and I get out of this house ! " 
 
 Joy fastened the gaudy silver pins with a 
 jerk into the heavy white chenille that she 
 was tying about her throat and hair, turned 
 herself about before the glass with a last 
 complacent look, and walked, in her delib- 
 erate, cool, provoking way, from the room. 
 Gypsy got up, and — slammed the door on 
 her. 
 
 Very dignified proceedings, certainly, for 
 girls twelve and thirteen years old. An un- 
 speakably important matter to quarrel about — 
 a piece of white chenille! Angry people, be 
 it remembered, are not given to over-much 
 
dignity, and how many quarrels are of the 
 slightest importance? 
 
 Yet the things these two girls found to 
 dispute, and get angry, and get miserable, 
 and make the whole family miserable over, 
 were so ridiculously petty that I hardly ex- 
 pect to be believed in telling of them. The 
 front side of the bed, the upper drawer in 
 the bureau, a hair-ribbon, who should be 
 helped first at the table, who was the best 
 scholar, which was the more stylish color, 
 drab or green, and whether Vermont wasn't 
 a better State than Massachusetts — such 
 matters might very appropriately be the sub- 
 jects of the dissensions of young ladies in 
 pinafores and pantalettes. 
 
 Yet I think you will bear me witness, 
 girls, some of you — ah, I know you by the 
 sudden pink in your cheeks — who have 
 gone to live with a cousin, or had a cousin 
 live with you, or whose mother has adopted 
 an orphan, or taken charge of a missionary's 
 
daughter, or in some way or other have 
 been brought for the first time in your life 
 into daily and hourly collision with another 
 young will just as strong and unbending as 
 yours — can't you bear me witness that, in 
 these little contests between Joy and Gypsy, 
 I am telling no " made-up stories," but sad, 
 simple fact? 
 
 If you can't, I am very glad of it. 
 
 No, as I said before, matters were not 
 going on at all comfortably; and every week 
 seemed to make them worse. Wherein lay 
 the trouble, and how to prevent it, neither 
 of the girls had as yet exerted themselves 
 to think. 
 
 A week or two after the adventures that 
 befell that unfortunate kitten, something hap- 
 pened which threatened to make the breach 
 between Gypsy and Joy of a very serious 
 nature. It began, as a great many other 
 serious things begin, in a very small and 
 rather funny affair. 
 
Mrs. Surly, who has been spoken of as 
 Gypsy's particular aversion, was a queer old 
 lady with green glasses, who lived opposite 
 Mr. Breynton's, who felt herself particularly 
 responsible for Gypsy's training, and gave 
 
 c^i her good advice, 
 
 double measure, pressed down 
 and running over. One 
 morning it chanced that 
 
 Gypsy was playing "stick-knife" with Tom 
 out in the front yard, and that Mrs. Surly 
 beheld her from her parlor window, and that 
 Mrs. Surly was shocked. She threw up her 
 window and called in an awful voice — 
 
"Jemima Breynton!" 
 
 Now you might about as well challenge 
 Gypsy to a duel as call her Jemina; so — 
 
 "What do you want?" she said, none too 
 respectfully. 
 
 " I have something to say to you, Jemima 
 Breynton." 
 
 " Say ahead," said Gypsy, under her 
 breath, and did not stir an inch. Distance 
 certainly lent enchantment to the view when 
 Mrs. Surly was in the case. 
 
 "Docs your ma allow you to be so bold 
 as to play boys' games with boys, right out 
 in sight of folks? " vociferated Mrs. Surly. 
 
 "Certainly," nodded Gypsy. "It's your 
 turn, Tom." 
 
 "Well, it's my opinion, Gypsy Breynton, 
 you're a romp. You're nothing but a romp, 
 and if / was your ma " 
 
 Tom dropped his knife just then, stood 
 up and looked at Mrs. Surly. For reasons 
 best known to herself, Mrs. Surly shut the 
 
window and contented herself with glaring 
 through the glass. 
 
 Now, Joy had stood in the doorway and 
 been witness to the scene, and moreover, 
 having been reproved by her aunt for some- 
 thing or other that morning, she felt ill- 
 humored, and very ready to find fault in her turn. 
 
 " I think it's just so, anyway," she said. 
 "/ wouldn't be seen playing stick-knife for 
 a good deal." 
 
 "And I wouldn't be seen telling lies!" 
 retorted Gypsy, sorry for it the minute she 
 had said it. Then there followed a highly 
 interesting dialogue of about five minutes' 
 length, and of such a character that Tom 
 speedily took his departure. 
 
 Now it came about that Gypsy, as usual, 
 was the first ready to "make up," and she 
 turned over plan after plan in her mind, to 
 find something pleasant she could do for 
 Joy. At last, as the greatest treat she could 
 think of to offer her, she said: 
 
"I'll tell you what! Let's go down to 
 Peace Maythorne's. I do believe I haven't 
 taken you there since you've been in York- 
 bury." 
 
 "Who's Peace Maythorne?" asked Joy, 
 sulkily. 
 
 "Well, she's the person I love just about 
 best of anybody." 
 
 "Best of anybody!" 
 
 " Oh, mother, of course, and Tom, and 
 Winnie, and father, and all those. Rela- 
 tions don't count. But I do love her as well 
 as anybody but mother — and Tom, and — 
 well, anyway, I love her dreadfully." 
 
 " What is she, a woman, or a gi**, or 
 what? " 
 
 "She's an angel," said Gypsy. 
 
 "What a goose you are!" 
 
 "Very likely; but whether I'm a goose or 
 not, she's an angel. I look for the wings 
 every time I see her. She has the sweetest 
 little way of keeping 'em folded up, and 
 
you're always on the jump, thinking you 
 see 'em." 
 
 "How you talk! I've a good mind to go 
 and see her." 
 
 "All right." 
 
 So away they went, as pleasant as a sum- 
 mer's day, merrily chatting. 
 
 "But I don't think angels are very nice, 
 generally," said Joy, doubtingly. "They 
 preach. Does Peace Maythorne preach? I 
 shan't like her if she does." 
 
 "Peace preach! Not like her! You'd bet- 
 ter know what you're talking about, if you're 
 going to talk," said Gypsy, with heightened 
 color. 
 
 " Dear me, you take a body's head off. 
 Well, if she should preach, I shall come 
 right home." 
 
 They had come now to the village, where 
 were the stores and the post-office, the bank, 
 and some handsome dwelling-houses. Also 
 the one paved sidewalk of Yorkbury, whereon 
 
the young people did their promenading after 
 school in the afternoon. Joy always fancied 
 coming here, gay in her white chenille and 
 white ribbons, and dainty parasol lined with 
 white silk. There is nothing so showy as 
 showy mourning, and Joy made the most 
 of it. 
 
 "Why, where are you going?" she ex- 
 claimed at last. Gypsy had turned away 
 from the fashionable street, and the hand- 
 some houses, and the paved sidewalk. 
 
 "To Peace Maythorne's." 
 
 " This way?" 
 
 " This way." 
 
 The street into which Gypsy had turned 
 was narrow and not over clean; the houses 
 unpainted and low. As they walked on it 
 grew narrower and dirtier, and the houses 
 became tenement houses only. 
 
 "Do, for pity's sake, hurry and get out 
 of here," said Joy, daintily holding up her 
 dress. Gypsy walked on and said nothing. 
 
Red-faced women in ragged dresses began to 
 cluster on the steps; muddy-faced children 
 screamed and quarreled in the road. At the 
 door of a large tenement building, somewhat 
 neater than the rest, but miserable enough, 
 Gypsy stopped. 
 
 "What are you stopping for?" said Joy. 
 
 "This is where she lives." 
 
 "Here?" 
 
 " I just guess she does," put in a voice 
 from behind; it was Winnie, who had fol- 
 lowed them on tiptoe, unknown to them, all 
 the way. "She's got a funny quirk in her 
 back, 'n' she lies down pretty much. That's 
 her room up there to the top of the house. 
 It's a real nice place, I tell you. They have 
 onions mos' every day. Besides, I saw a 
 little boy here one time when I was comin* 
 'long with mother, 'n' he was smokin' some 
 tobaccer. He said he'd give it to me for 
 two nappies, and mother just wouldn't let 
 
 me." 
 
 132 
 
"Here — a cripple!" exclaimed Joy. 
 
 "Here, and a cripple," said Gypsy, in a 
 queer tone, looking very straight at Joy. 
 
 "You ought to be ashamed of yourself!" 
 broke out Joy, "playing such a trick on me. 
 Do you suppose I'm going into such a place 
 as this, to see an old beggar — a hunch- 
 backed beggar ? " 
 
 Gypsy turned perfectly white. When she 
 was very angry, too angry to speak, she 
 always turned white. It was some seconds 
 before she could find her voice. 
 
 "A hunch-backed beggar! Peace? How 
 dare you say such things of Peace May- 
 thorne? Joy Breynton, I'll never forgive you 
 for this as long as I live — never!" 
 
 The two girls looked at each other. Just 
 at that moment I am afraid there was some- 
 thing in their hearts answering to that for- 
 bidden word, that terrible word — hate. Ah, 
 we feel so safe from it in our gentle, happy, 
 untempted lives, just as safe as they felt 
 
once. Remember this, girls: when Love goes 
 ottt, Hate comes in. In your heart there 
 stands an angel, watching, t,._^nt, on whose 
 lips are kindly words, in whose hands are 
 patient, kindly deeds, whose eyes see " good 
 in everything," something to love where love 
 is hardest, some generous, gentle way to 
 show that love when ways seem closed. 
 In your heart, too, away down in its dark- 
 est corner, all forgotten, perhaps, by you, 
 crouches something with face too black to 
 look upon, something that likewise watches 
 and waits with horrible patience, if perhaps 
 the angel, with folded wing and drooping 
 head, may be driven out. It is never 
 empty, this curious, fickle heart. One or 
 the other must stand there, king of it. One 
 or the other — and in the twinkling of an 
 eye the change is made, from angel to 
 fiend, from fiend to angel ; just which you 
 choose. 
 
 Toy broke away from her cousin in a 
 
passion. Gypsy flew into the door of the 
 miserable house, up the stairs two steps at 
 a time, to the door of a low room in 
 the second story, and rushed in without 
 knocking. 
 
 " Oh, Peace Maythorne ! " 
 
 The cripple lying on the bed turned her 
 pale face to the door, her large, quiet eyes 
 blue with wonder. 
 
 "Why, Gypsy! What is the matter?" 
 
 Gypsy's face was white still, very white. 
 She shut the door loudly, and sat down on 
 the bed with a jar that shook it all over. 
 A faint expression of pain crossed the face 
 of Peace. 
 
 " Oh, I didn't mean to — it was cruel in 
 me ! How could I ? Have I hurt you very 
 badly, Peace ? ' ' Gypsy slipped down upon 
 the floor, the color coming into her face 
 now, from shame and sorrow. Peace gently 
 motioned her back to her place upon the 
 bed, smiling. 
 
" Oh, no. It was nothing. Sit up here ; 
 I like to have you. Now, what is it, 
 Gypsy ? " 
 
 The tone of this "What is it, Gypsy?'' 
 told a great deal. It told that it was no 
 new thing for Gypsy to come there just so, 
 with her troubles and her joys, her sins and 
 her well-doings, her plans and hopes and 
 fears, all the little stories of the fresh, young 
 life from which the cripple was forever shut 
 out. It told, too, what Gypsy found in this 
 quiet room, and took away from it — all 
 the help and the comfort, and the sweet, 
 sad lessons. It told, besides, much of what 
 Peace and Gypsy were to each other, that 
 only they two should ever exactly under- 
 stand. It was a tone that always softened 
 Gypsy, in her gayest frolics, in her wildest 
 moods. For the first time since she had 
 known Peace, it failed to soften her now. 
 
 She began in her impetuous way, her face 
 
 angry and flushed, her voice trembling yet ;— 
 
 i 3 6 
 
" I can't tell you what it is, and that's the 
 thing of it! It's about that horrid old Joy." 
 
 "Gypsy!" 
 
 "I can't help it — I hate her!" 
 
 " Gypsy." 
 
 Gypsy's eyes fell at the gentle word. 
 
 "Well, I felt just as if I did, down there 
 on the steps, anyway. You don't know what 
 Joy said. It's something about you, and that's 
 what makes me so mad. If she ever says it 
 again ! " 
 
 "About me?" interrupted Peace. 
 
 "Yes," said Gypsy, with great, flashing 
 eyes. "I wouldn't tell it to you for all the 
 world; it's so bad as that, Peace. How she 
 dared to call you a beg " 
 
 Gypsy stopped short. But she had let the 
 cat out of the bag. Peace smiled again. 
 
 "A beggar! Well, it doesn't hurt me any, 
 does it? Joy has never seen me, doesn't know 
 me, you must remember, Gypsy. Besides, no- 
 body else thinks as much of me as you do." 
 
"I didn't mean to say that; I'm always 
 saying the wrong thing! Anyway, that isn't 
 all of it, and I did think I should strike her 
 when she said it. I can't bear Joy. You 
 don't know what she is, Peace. She grows 
 worse and worse. She does things I wouldn't 
 do for anything, and I wish she'd never 
 come here! " 
 
 "Is Joy always wrong?" asked Peace, 
 gently. Peace rarely gave to any one as 
 much of a reproof as that. Gypsy felt it. 
 
 "No," said she, honestly, "she isn't. I'm 
 real horrid and wicked, and do ugly things. 
 But I can't help it; Joy makes me — she acts so." 
 
 " I know what's the matter with you and 
 Joy, I guess," said Peace. 
 
 . "The matter? Well, I don't; I wish I did. 
 We're always fight — fighting, day in and day 
 out, and I'm tired to death of it. I'm just 
 crazy for the time for Joy to go home, and 
 I'm dreadfully unhappy having her round, 
 now I am, Peace." 
 
 138 
 
Gypsy drew down her merry, red iips, and 
 looked very serious. To tell the truth, how- 
 ever, do the best she would, she could not 
 look altogether as if her heart were breaking 
 from the amount of " unhappiness " that fell 
 to her lot. A little smile quivered around 
 the lips of Peace. 
 
 "Well," said Gypsy, laughing in spite of 
 herself, " I am. I never can make anybody 
 believe it, though. What is the matter with 
 Joy and me? You didn't say." 
 
 "You've forgotten something, I think." 
 
 "Forgotten something?" 
 
 " Yes — something you read me once out 
 of an old Book." 
 
 "Book? Oh!" said Gypsy, beginning to 
 understand. 
 
 "In honor preferring one another," said 
 Peace, softly. Gypsy did not say anything. 
 Peace took up her Bible that lay on the bed 
 beside her — it always lay on the bed — and 
 turned the leaves, and laid her finger on 
 
the verse. Gypsy read it through before 
 she spoke. Then she said slowly: 
 
 "Why, Peace Maythorne. I — never could 
 — in this world — never." 
 
 Just then there came a knock at the door. 
 Gypsy went to open it, and stood struck 
 dumb for amazement. It was Joy. 
 
 ' ' Auntie said it was supper-time, and you 
 were to come home," began Joy, somewhat 
 embarrassed. "She was going to send 
 Winnie, but I thought I'd come." 
 
 "Why, I never!" said Gypsy, still stand- 
 ing with the door-knob in her hand. 
 
 " Is this your cousin? " spoke up Peace. 
 
 "Oh, yes, I forgot. This is Peace May- 
 thorne, Joy." 
 
 " I am glad to see you," said Peace in her 
 pleasant way; "won't you come in?" 
 
 "Well, perhaps I will, a minute," said Joy, 
 awkwardly, taking a chair by the window, 
 and wondering if Gypsy had told Peace what 
 
 she said. But Peace was so cordial, her voice 
 
 i 4 o 
 
so quiet, and her eyes so kind, that she con- 
 cluded she knew nothing about it, and soon 
 felt quite at her ease. Everybody was at 
 ease with Peace Maythorne. 
 
 "How pleasant it is here!" said Joy, look- 
 ing about the room in unfeigned astonish- 
 ment. And indeed it was. The furniture 
 was poor enough, but everything was as neat 
 as fresh wax, and the sunlight, that some- 
 how or other always sought that room the 
 earliest, and left it the latest — the warm, 
 shimmering sunlight that Peace so loved — 
 was yellow on the old, faded carpet, on the 
 paperless, pictureless wall, on the bed where 
 the hands of Peace lay, patient and folded. 
 
 " It is pleasant," said Peace, heartily. 
 "You don't know how thankful it makes 
 me. Aunt came very near taking a room on 
 the north side. Sometimes I really don't 
 know what I should have done. But then I 
 guess I should have found something else to 
 like." 
 
 141 
 
/ should have found something else. A 
 sudden thought came to the two girls then, 
 in a dim, childish way — a thought they 
 could by no means have explained; they 
 wondered if in those few words did not lie 
 the key to Peace Maythorne's beautiful, sor- 
 rowful life. They would not have expressed 
 it so, but that was what they meant. 
 
 " See here," broke out Gypsy all at once, 
 " Peace Maythorne wants you and me to 
 make up, Joy." 
 
 "Your cousin will think I'm interfering 
 with what's none of my business," said 
 Peace, laughing. " I didn't say exactly that, 
 you know; I was only talking to you." 
 
 "Oh, I'd just as lief make up now, but 
 I wouldn't this morning," wondering for the 
 second time if Peace could know what she 
 said, and be so gentle and good to her; "I 
 will if Gypsy will." 
 
 "And I will if Joy will," said Gypsy, 
 "so it's a bargain." 
 
"Do you have a great deal of pain?" 
 asked Joy, as they rose to go, with real 
 sympathy in her puzzled eyes. 
 
 " Oh, yes; but then I get along." 
 
 " Peace Maythorne ! " put in Gypsy just then, 
 "is that all the dinner you ate?" Gypsy 
 was standing by the table on which was a 
 plate containing a cold potato, a broken 
 piece of bread, and a bit of beefsteak. Evi- 
 dently from the looks of the food, only a 
 few mouthfuls had been eaten. 
 
 " I didn't feel hungry," said Peace, eva- 
 sively. 
 
 " But you like meat, for you told me so." 
 
 "I didn't care about this," said Peace, 
 looking somewhat restless. 
 
 Gypsy looked at her sharply, then stooped 
 and whispered a few words in her ear. 
 
 "No," said Peace, her white cheek flush- 
 ing crimson. "Oh, no, she never told me 
 not to. She means to be very kind. I 
 cost her a great deal." 
 
" But you know she'd be glad if you 
 didn't eat much, and that was the reason 
 you didn't," exclaimed Gypsy, angrily. "I 
 think it's abominable!" 
 
 " Hush! please Gypsy." 
 
 Gypsy hushed. Just then the door opened 
 and Miss Jane Maythorne, Peace's aunt, came 
 in. She was a tall, thin, sallow-faced 
 woman, with angular shoulders and a sharp 
 chin. She looked like a New England woman 
 who had worked hard all her life and had 
 much trouble, so much that she thought of 
 little else now but work and trouble; who 
 had a heart somewhere, but was apt to for- 
 get all about it except on great occasions.. 
 
 " I've been talking to Peace about not 
 
 eating more," said Gypsy, when she had in- 
 
 " troduced Joy, and said good-afternoon. 
 
 " She'll die if she doesn't eat more than 
 
 that," pointing to the plate. 
 
 " She can eat all she wants, as far as I 
 know," said Aunt Jane, rather shortly.. "No- 
 
body ever told her not to. It's nothing very 
 fine in the way of victuals I can get her, 
 working as I work for two, and most beat 
 out every night. La! Peace, you haven't 
 eaten your meat, have you? Well, I'll warm it 
 over to-morrow, and it'll be as good as new." 
 
 "The old dragon!" exclaimed Gypsy, un- 
 der her breath, as the girls went out. " She 
 is a dragon, nothing more nor less — a dragon 
 that doesn't scold particularly, but a dragon 
 that looks. I'd rather be scolded to death 
 than looked at and looked at every mouth- 
 ful I eat. I don't wonder Peace doesn't 
 eat. She'll starve to death some day." 
 
 "But why don't you send her down 
 things? " asked Joy. Gypsy shook her head. 
 
 " You don't understand Peace. She wouldn't 
 like it. Mother does send her a quantity of 
 books and flowers and things, and dinner 
 just as often as she can without making 
 Peace feel badly. But Peace wouldn't like 
 'em every day." 
 
 145 
 
" She's real different from what I thought," 
 said Joy — "real. What pretty eyes she has. 
 I didn't seem to remember she was poor, a 
 bit." 
 
 "What made you come down?" 
 
 " 'Cause," said Toy. 
 
 This excellent reason was all that was ever 
 to be had out of her. But that first time 
 was by no means 
 the last she went 
 to Peace May- 
 thorne's room. 
 
 The girls were 
 in good spirits 
 that night, well 
 pleased with each 
 other, them- 
 selves, and every- 
 body else, as is 
 usually the case 
 when one is just 
 over a fit of ill- /Mf" 
 
 .,^-fc- 
 
 146 
 
temper. When they were alone in bed, Gypsy 
 told Joy about the verse of which Peace spoke. 
 Joy listened in silence. 
 
 Awhile after, Gypsy woke from a dream, 
 and saw a light burning on the table. Joy 
 was sitting up in her white night-dress, turn- 
 ing the leaves of a book as if she were 
 hunting for something. 
 
&■-,<*>'■ 
 
 ^ 
 
 t&c 
 
 &£^Kfc^ 
 
 •of- 
 
 OVEMBER, with its bright, bleak 
 ylfef skies, sere leaves tossing, sad winds 
 sobbing, and rains that wept for days 
 and nights together, on dead flowers and 
 dying grasses, moaned itself away at last, and 
 December swept into its place with a good rous- 
 ing snow-storm, merry sleigh-bells, and bright 
 promises of coming Christmas. The girls 
 coasted and skated, and made snow-men and 
 snowballs and snow-forts. Joy learned to 
 slide down a moderate hill at a mild rate 
 without screaming, and to get along some- 
 i 4 8 
 
how on her skates alone — for the very good 
 reason that Tom wouldn't help her. Gypsy 
 initiated her into the mysteries of "cannon- 
 firing" from the great icy forts, and taught 
 her how to roll the huge balls of snow. 
 Altogether they had a very good time. 
 Not as good as they might have had, by 
 any means; the old rubs and jars were 
 there still, though of late they had been 
 somewhat softened. Partly on account of 
 their talk with Peace; partly because of a 
 certain uncomfortable acquaintance called 
 conscience; partly because of their own good 
 sense, the girls had tacitly made up their 
 minds at least to make an effort to live to- 
 gether more happily. In some degree they 
 succeeded, but they were like people walking 
 over a volcano; the trouble was not quenched; 
 it lay always smoldering out of sight, ready 
 at a moment's notice to flare up into angry 
 flame. The fault lay perhaps no more with 
 one than another. Gypsy had never had a 
 
sister, and her brothers were neither of them 
 near enough to her own age to interfere very 
 much with her wishes and privileges. More- 
 over, a brother, though he may be the great- 
 est tease in existence, is apt to be easier to 
 get along with than a sister about one's own 
 age. His pleasures and ambitions run in dif- 
 ferent directions from the girls ; there is less 
 clashing of interests. Besides this, Gypsy's 
 playmates in Yorkbury, as has been said, had 
 not chanced to be girls of very strong wills. 
 Quite to her surprise, since Joy had been 
 her room-mate and constant companion, had 
 she found out that she — Gypsy — had been 
 pretty well used to having her own way, 
 and that other people sometimes liked to 
 have theirs. 
 
 . As for Joy, she had always been an only 
 child, and that tells a history. Of the two 
 perhaps she had the more to learn. The 
 simple fact that she was brought wisely and 
 kindly, but tliorouglily, under Mrs. Breyn- 
 
ton's control, was decidedly a revelation to 
 her. At her own home, it had always been 
 said, from the time she was a baby, that 
 her mother could not manage her, and her 
 father would not. She rebelled a little at 
 first against her aunt's authority, but she 
 was fast learning to love her, and when we 
 love, obedience ceases to be obedience, and 
 becomes an offering freely given. 
 
 A little thing happened one day, showing 
 that sadder and better side of Joy's heart 
 that always seemed to touch Gypsy. 
 
 They had been having some little trouble 
 about the lessons at school; it just verged 
 on a quarrel, and slided off, and they had 
 treated each other pleasantly after it. At 
 night Joy was sitting upstairs writing a let- 
 ter to her father, when a gust of wind took 
 the sheet and blew it to Gypsy's feet. 
 Gypsy picked it up to carry it to her, and 
 in doing so, her eyes fell accidentally on 
 some large, legible words at the bottom of 
 
the page. She had not the slightest inten- 
 tion of reading them, but their meaning 
 came to her against her will, in that curi- 
 ous way we see things in a flash some- 
 times. This was what she saw: 
 
 " I like auntie ever so much, and Tom. 
 
 Gypsy was cross this morning. She " and 
 
 then followed Joy's own version of the morn- 
 ing's dispute. Gypsy was vexed. She liked 
 her uncle, and she did not like to have him 
 hear such one-sided stories of her, and judge 
 her as he would. 
 
 She walked over to Joy with very red 
 cheeks. 
 
 " Here's your letter. I tried not to read 
 it, but I couldn't help seeing that about 
 me. I don't think you've any business to 
 tell him about me unless you can tell the 
 truth." 
 
 Of course Joy resented such a remark as 
 this, and high words followed. They went 
 down to supper sulkily, and said nothing to 
 
one another for an hour. After tea, Joy 
 crept up moodily into the corner, and Gypsy 
 sat down on the cricket for one of her 
 merry talks with her mother. After she had 
 told her how many times she missed at school 
 that day, what a funny tumble Sarah Rowe 
 had on the ice, and laughed over ''Winnie's 
 latest " till she was laughed out and talked 
 out too, she sprang into her lap, in one of 
 Gypsy's sudden outbursts of affection, throw- 
 ing her arms around her neck, and kissing 
 her on cheeks, forehead, lips and chin. 
 
 " O-oh, what a blessed little mother you 
 are! What should I do without you?" 
 
 "Mother's darling daughter! What should 
 she do without you? " said Mrs. Breynton, 
 softly. 
 
 But not softly enough. Gypsy looked up 
 suddenly and saw a pale face peering out 
 at them from behind the curtain, its great 
 eyes swimming in tears, its lips quivering. 
 The next minute Joy left the room. 
 
There was something dim in Gypsy's eyes 
 as she hurried after her. She found her 
 crouched upstairs in the dark and cold, sob- 
 
 bing as if her heart would break. Gypsy 
 put her arm around her. 
 
 " Kiss me, Joy." 
 
 Joy kissed her, and that was all that was 
 
said. But it ended in Gypsy's bringing her 
 triumphantly downstairs, where were the lights 
 and the fire, and the pleasant room, and an- 
 other cricket waiting at Mrs. Breynton's feet. 
 
 They were very busy after this with the 
 coming Christmas. Joy confidently expected 
 a five-dollar bill from her father, and Gypsy 
 cherished faint aspirations after a portfolio 
 with purple roses on it. But most of their 
 thoughts, and all their energies, were occu- 
 pied with the little gifts they intended to 
 make themselves; and herein lay a difficulty. 
 Joy's father always supplied her bountifully 
 with spending money; Gypsy's stock was 
 small. When Joy wanted to make a present, 
 she had only to ask for a few extra dollars, 
 and she had them. Gypsy always felt as if 
 a present given in that way were no present; 
 unless a thing cost her some self-denial, or 
 some labor, she reasoned, it had nothing to 
 do with her. If given directly out of her 
 father's pocket, it was his gift, not hers. 
 
 '55 
 
But then, how much handsomer Joy's 
 things would be. 
 
 Thus Gypsy was thinking in her secret 
 heart, over and over. How could she help 
 it? And Joy, perhaps — possibly — Joy was 
 thinking the same thing, with a spice of 
 pleasure in the thought. 
 
 It was about her mother that Gypsy was 
 chiefly troubled. Tom had condescendingly 
 informed her, about six months ago, that 
 he'd just as lief she would make him a 
 watch-case if she wanted to very much. 
 Girls always would jump at the chance to get 
 up any such nonsense. Be sure she did it up 
 in style, with gold and silver tape, and 
 some of your blue alpaca. (Tom's concep- 
 tions of the feminine race, their apparel, 
 occupations and implements, were bounded 
 by tape and alpaca.) So Tom was provided 
 for; the watch-case was nearly made, and 
 bade fair to be quite as pretty as anything 
 Joy could buy. Winnie was easily suited, 
 
and her father would be as contented with a 
 shaving-case as with a velvet dressing-gown; 
 indeed he'd hardly know the difference. Joy 
 should have a pretty white velvet hair-ribbon. 
 But what for mother? She lay awake a 
 whole half hour one night, perplexing her- 
 self over the question, and at last decided 
 rather falteringly on a photograph frame of 
 shell-work. Gypsy's shell-work was always 
 pretty, and her mother had a peculiar fancy 
 for it. 
 
 "/ shall give her Whittier's poems," said 
 Joy, in — perhaps unconsciously, perhaps not 
 — a rather triumphant tone. "I heard her 
 say the other day she wanted them ever 
 so much. I'm going to get the best copy 
 I can find, with gold edges. If uncle 
 hasn't a nice one in his store, I'll send to 
 Boston. Mr. Ticknor'll pick me out the 
 best one he has, I know, 'cause he knows 
 father real well, and we buy lots of things 
 there." 
 
Gypsy said nothing. She was 
 rather abashed to hear Joy talk 
 in such familiar terms of Mr. 
 Ticknor. She was more uneasy < 
 that Joy should give so hand- 
 some a present. She sat 
 looking at her silently, 
 and while she looked, a 
 curious, dull, sickening 
 pain crept into her heart. 
 It frightened her, and she 
 ran away downstairs to 
 get rid of it. 
 
 A few days after, she was sitting alone work- 
 ing on the photograph case. It was rather 
 pretty work, though not over-clean. She 
 had cut a well-shaped frame out of paste- 
 board, with a long, narrow piece bent back 
 to serve as support. The frame was cov- 
 ered with putty, and into the putty she 
 fastened her shells. They were of different 
 sizes, shapes, and colors, and she was laying 
 15s 
 
hem on in a pretty pattern of stars and 
 crescents. She had just stopped to look at 
 her work, her red lips shut together with 
 the air of a connoisseur, and her head on one 
 side, like a canary, when Joy came in. 
 
 "Just look here!" and she held up be- 
 fore her astonished eyes a handsome volume 
 of blue and gold — Whittier's poems, and 
 written on the fly-leaf, in Joy's very best 
 copy-book hand, "For Auntie, with a Merry 
 Christmas, from Joy." 
 
 " Uncle sent to Boston for me, and got it, 
 and he promised on his word 'n' honor, cer- 
 tain true, black and blue, he wouldn't let 
 Auntie know a single sign of a thing about 
 it. Isn't it splendid?" 
 
 "Ye-es,"said Gypsy, slowly. 
 
 "Well! I don't think you seem to care 
 much." 
 
 Gypsy looked at her shell-work, and said 
 nothing. For the second time that dull, curi- 
 ous pain had crept into her heart. What 
 
did it mean? Was it possible that she was 
 envious of Joy? Was it possible? 
 
 The hot crimson rushed to Gypsy's cheeks 
 for shame at the thought. But the thought 
 was there. 
 
 She chanced to be in Peace Maythorne's 
 room one day when the bustle of prepara- 
 tion for the holidays was busiest. Peace hid 
 something under the counterpane as she 
 came in, flushing a little. Gypsy sat down 
 in her favorite place on the bed, just 
 where she could see the cripple's great quiet 
 eyes — she always liked to watch Peace May- 
 thorne's eyes — and in doing so disturbed 
 the bedclothes. A piece of work fell out: 
 plain, fine sewing, in which the needle lay 
 with a stitch partially taken. 
 
 "Peace May thorne ! " said Gypsy, "you've 
 been doing it again ! " 
 
 " A little, just to help aunt, you know. 
 A little doesn't hurt me, Gypsy." 
 
 "Doesn't hurt you! Peace, you know 
 
 ■~ "- 
 
better. You know you never sew a stitch 
 but you lie awake half the night after it 
 with the pain." 
 
 Peace did not contradict her. She could 
 not. 
 
 "Help your aunt!" Gypsy went on vehe- 
 mently; "she oughtn . f o let you touch it. 
 She hasn't any more feeling than a stone 
 wall, nor half as much, I say!" 
 
 "Hush, Gypsy! Don't say that. Indeed 
 I'd rather have the pain, and help her a 
 little, once in a while, when my best days 
 come and I can; I had, really, Gypsy. 
 You don't know how it hurts me — a great 
 deal more than this other hurt in my back 
 — to lie here and let her support me, and 
 I not do a thing. O Gypsy, you don't 
 know ! " 
 
 Something in Peace Maythorne's tone just 
 then made Gypsy feel worse than she felt 
 to see her sew. She was silent a minute, 
 turning away her face. 
 
''Well, I suppose I don't. But I say I'd 
 as lief have a stone wall for an aunt; no, 
 I will say it, Peace, and you needn't look 
 at me." Peace looked, notwithstanding, and 
 Gypsy stopped saying it, 
 
 "Sometimes I've thought," said Peace, 
 after a pause, "I might earn a little crochet- 
 ing. Once, long ago, I made a mat out of 
 ends of worsted I found, and it didn't hurt 
 me hardly any; on my good days it wouldn't 
 honestly hurt me at all. It's pretty work, 
 crocheting, isn't it?" 
 
 "Why don't you crochet, then," said 
 Gypsy, "if you must do anything? It's ten 
 thousand times easier than this sewing you're 
 killing yourself over." 
 
 " I've no worsteds, you know," said Peace, 
 coloring; and changed the subject at once. 
 
 Gypsy looked thoughtful. Very soon after 
 she bade Peace good-bye, and went home. 
 
 That night she called her mother away 
 alone, and told her what Peace had said. 
 
"Now, mother, I've thought out an idea." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " You mustn't say no, if I tell you." 
 
 " I'll try not to; if it is a sensible idea." 
 
 " Do I ever have an idea that isn't sensible? " 
 said Gypsy, demurely. " I prefer not to be 
 slandered, if you please, Mrs. Breynton." 
 
 "Well, but what's the idea?" 
 
 " It's just this. Miss Jane Maythorne is a 
 heathen." 
 
 "Is that all?" 
 
 " No. But Miss Jane Maythorne is a 
 heathen, and ought to cut off her head before 
 she lets Peace sew. But you see she doesn't 
 know she's a heathen, and Peace will sew." 
 
 " Well, what then?" 
 
 " If she will do something, and won't be 
 
 happy without, then I can't help it, you 
 
 see. But I can give her some worsteds for 
 
 a Christmas present, and she can make little 
 
 mats and things, and you can buy them. 
 
 Now, mother, isn't that nice? " 
 163 
 
"Yes," said Mrs. Breynton, after a mo- 
 ment's thought. "It is a very good plan. 
 I think Joy would like to join you. To- 
 gether, you can make quite a handsome pres- 
 ent out of it." 
 
 " I don't want Joy to know a thing about 
 it," said Gypsy, with a decision in her voice 
 that amounted almost to anger. 
 
 "Why, Gypsy ! " 
 
 " No, not a thing. She just takes her 
 father's money, and gives lots of splendid 
 presents, and makes me ashamed of all mine, 
 and she's glad of it, too. If I'm going to 
 give anything to Peace, I don't want her to." 
 
 " I think Joy has taken a great fancy to 
 Peace. She would enjoy giving her some- 
 thing very much," said Mrs. Breynton, 
 gravely. 
 
 " I can't help it. Peace Maythorne be- 
 longs to me. It would spoil it all to have 
 Joy have anything to do with it." 
 
 ''Worsted are very expensive now," said 
 164 
 
her mother; "} 7 ou alone cannot give Peace 
 enough to amount to much." 
 
 "I don't care," said Gypsy, resolutely, "I 
 want to do one thing Joy doesn't." 
 
 Mrs. Breynton said nothing, and Gypsy 
 went slowly from the room. 
 
 " I wish we could give Peace Maythorne 
 something," said Joy, an hour after, when 
 they were all sitting together. Mrs. Breyn- 
 ton raised her eyes from her work, but 
 Gypsy was looking out of the window. 
 
 When the girls went up to bed, Gypsy 
 was very silent. Joy tried to laugh and 
 plague and scold her into talking, but it 
 was of no use. Just before they went to 
 sleep, she spoke up suddenly: 
 
 "Joy, do you want to give something to 
 Peace Maythorne?" 
 
 " Splendid! " cried Joy, jumping up in bed 
 to clap her hands, "what?" 
 
 Gypsy told her then all the plan, a little 
 slowly : it was rather hard. 
 
 16s 
 
Perhaps Joy detected the hesitation in her 
 tone. Joy was not given to detecting things 
 with remarkable quickness, but it was so 
 plain that she could not very well help it. 
 
 "I don't believe you want me to give 
 any of it." 
 
 " Oh, yes," said Gypsy, trying to speak 
 cordially, "yes, it will be better." 
 
 It certainly was better she felt. She went 
 to sleep, glad it was settled so. 
 
 When the girls came to make their pur- 
 chases, they found that Gypsy's contribution 
 of money would just about buy the crochet- 
 needles and patterns. The worsteds cost 
 about treble what she could give. So it 
 was settled that they should be Joy's gift. 
 
 Gypsy was very pleasant about it, but Joy 
 could not help seeing that she was disap- 
 pointed. So then there came a little gener- 
 ous impulse to Joy too, and she came one 
 day and said : 
 
 "Gypsy, don't let's divide the things off 
 
so, for Peace. It makes my part the largest. 
 Besides, the worsteds look the prettiest. Let's 
 just give them together and have it all one." 
 
 There is a rare pleasure in making a gift 
 one's self, without being hampered by this 
 "all-together" notion, isn't there? — espe- 
 cially if the gift be a handsome one, and is 
 going where it is very much needed. So as 
 Joy sat fingering the pile of elegant worsteds, 
 twining the brilliant, soft folds of orange, 
 and crimson, and royal purple, and soft, 
 wood-browns about her hands, it cost her a 
 bit of a struggle to say this. It seems 
 rather a small thing to write about ? Ah, 
 they are these bits of struggles in which 
 we learn to fight the great ones; perhaps 
 these bits of struggles, more than the great 
 ones, make up life. 
 
 "You're real good," said Gypsy, surprised; 
 
 "I think I'd rather not. It isn"; really 
 
 half of it mine, and I don't war., to say 
 
 so. But it's just as good in you." 
 167 
 
At that moment, though neither of them 
 knew it was so, one thought was in the 
 heart of both. It was a sudden thought 
 that came and went, and left a great hap- 
 piness in its place (for great happiness 
 springs out of very little battles and vic- 
 tories), — a memory of Peace Maythorne's 
 verse. The good Christmas time would have 
 been a golden time to them, if it taught 
 them in ever so small, imperfect ways, to 
 prefer one another "in honor." 
 
 One day before it came a sudden notion 
 seemed to strike Gypsy, and she rushed out 
 of the house fn her characteristic style, as 
 if she were running for her life, and down 
 to Peace Maythorne's, and flew into the 
 quiet room like a tempest. 
 
 " Peace Maythorne, what's your favorite 
 verse? " 
 
 "Why, what a hurry you're in! Sit down 
 and rest a minute." 
 
 " No, I can't stop. I just want to know 
 
 16S 
 
what your favorite verse is, as quick as ever 
 you can be." 
 
 " Did you come down just for that? How- 
 queer! Well, let me see." 
 
 Peace stopped a minute, her quiet eyes 
 looking off through the window, but seem- 
 ing to see nothing — away somewhere, Gypsy, 
 even in her hurry stopped to wonder where. 
 
 "I think — it isn't one you'd care much 
 about, perhaps — I think I like this. Yes, 
 I think 1 can't help liking it best of all." 
 
 Peace touched her finger to a page of her 
 Bible that lay open. Gypsy, bending over, read : 
 
 "And the inhabitants shall not say I am sick." 
 
 When she had read, she stooped and 
 kissed Peace with a sudden kiss. 
 
 From that time until Christmas Gypsy was 
 
 very busy in her own room with her paint 
 
 box, all the spare time she could find. On 
 
 Christmas Eve she went down just after 
 
 dusk to Peace Maythorne's room, and caH~d 
 
 Miss Jane out into the entry. 
 169 
 
''This is for Peace, and I made it. I 
 don't want her to see a thing about it till 
 she wakes up in the morning. Could you 
 please to fasten it up on the wall just oppo- 
 site the bed where the sun shines in? some- 
 time after she's gone to sleep, you know." 
 
 Miss Jane, somewhat bewildered, took the 
 thing that Gypsy held out to her, and held 
 it up in the light that fell from a neigh- 
 bor's half-open door. 
 
 It was a large illuminated text, painted on 
 Bristol board of a soft gray shade, and very 
 well done for a non-professional artist. The 
 letters were of that exquisite shade known 
 by the artists as smalt blue, edged heavily 
 with gold, and round them a border of yel- 
 low, delicate sprays of wheat. Miss Jane 
 spelled out in German text: 
 
 "Jlnbtbc fnbabitant? jeball not sap 31 am &icfc. 
 
 "Well, thank you. I'll put it up. Peace 
 never gets asleep till terrible late, and I'm 
 
rather worn out with work to lie awake 
 waitin' till she is. But then, if you want 
 to surprise her — I s'pose she will be dread- 
 ful tickled — I guess I'll manage it some- 
 ways." 
 
 Perhaps Miss Jane was softened into being 
 obliging by her coming holiday; or perhaps 
 the mournful, longing words touched some- 
 thing in her that nothing touched very 
 often. 
 
 Gypsy and Joy were not so old but that 
 Christmas Eve with its little plans for the 
 morrow held yet a certain shade of that de- 
 lightful suspense and mystery which per- 
 haps never hangs about the greater and 
 graver joys of life. I fancy we drink it to 
 the full, in the hanging up of stockings, the 
 peering out into the dark to see Santa 
 Claus come down the chimney (perfectly 
 conscious that that gentleman is the most 
 transparent of hoaxes, but with a sort of 
 faith in him all the while; we may see him 
 
if we can lie awake long enough — who 
 knows?) the falling asleep before we know 
 it, and much against our will, the waking 
 in the cold, gray, mysterious dawn, and 
 pattering about barefoot to "catch" the 
 dreaming and defenseless family. 
 
 "I'm going to lie awake all night," Gypsy 
 announced, as she stood brushing out her 
 bright, black hair; "then I'll catch you, 
 you see if I don't." 
 
 "But I'm going to lie awake, too," said 
 Joy. "I was going to last Christmas, only — 
 I didn't." 
 
 " Sit up and see the sun dance, like 
 Patty." 
 
 "Well, let's. I never was awake all night 
 in my whole life." 
 
 "Nor I," said Gypsy. "I came pretty 
 near it once, but I somehow went to sleep 
 along at the end." 
 
 " When was that? " 
 
 "Why, one time I had a dream, and went 
 
clear over to the Kleiner Berg Basin, in my 
 sleep, and got into the boat." 
 
 "You did!" 
 
 " I guess I did. The boat was unlocked 
 and the oars were up at the barn, and so I 
 floated off, and there I had to stay till Tom 
 came in the morning." 
 
 " Why, I should have been scared out of 
 my seventeen senses," said Joy, creeping into 
 bed. "Didn't you scream?" 
 
 "No. That wouldn't have done any good. 
 See here, Joy, if you find me going to 
 sleep, pinch me, will you?" 
 
 "Oh, yes," said Joy, with alacrity. "I 
 shall be awake, I know." 
 
 There was a silence. Gypsy broke it by 
 turning her head over on the pillow with a 
 whisk, and opening her eyes savagely, quite 
 indignant to find them shut. 
 
 "Joy." 
 
 No answer. 
 
 "Joy, you're going " 
 
Joy's head turned over with another whisk. 
 
 "No, I'm not. I'm just as wide awake as 
 ever I was." 
 
 Another silence. 
 
 "Gypsy!" 
 
 Gypsy jumped. 
 
 " You re going to sleep.'' 
 
 "It isn't any such thing," said Gypsy, sit- 
 ting up and rubbing her eyes. 
 
 " I wonder if it isn't most morning," said 
 Joy, in a tone of cheerful indifference. 
 
 "Most morning! Mother'd say we'd been 
 in bed just ten minutes, I suppose." 
 
 Joy stifled a groan, and by dint of great 
 exertions turned it into a laugh. 
 
 " All the longer to lie awake. It's nice, 
 isn't it?" 
 
 "Ye-es. Let's talk. People that sit up all 
 night talk, I guess." 
 
 " Well, I guess it would be a good plan. 
 You begin." 
 
 "I don't know anything to say.' 
 
"Well, I'm sure I don't." 
 
 Silence again. 
 
 " Joy Breynton." 
 
 " We-ell?" 
 
 " I guess I'll keep awake just as well if 
 I — shut up — my eyes. Don't you — " 
 
 That was the end of Gypsy's sentence, and 
 Joy never asked for the rest of it. Just 
 about an hour and a half after, Gypsy heard 
 a noise, and was somewhat surprised to see 
 Joy standing up with her head in the wash- 
 bowl. 
 
 "What are you doing?" 
 
 "Oh, just dipping my head into the water. 
 They say it helps keep people awake." 
 
 "Oh — well. See here; we haven't talked 
 much lately, have we?" 
 
 " No. I thought I wouldn't disturb you." 
 
 Gypsy made a ghastly attempt to answer, 
 but couldn't quite do it. 
 
 At the end of another indefinite period 
 Joy opened her eyes under the remarkable 
 
impression that Oliver Cromwell was carrying 
 her to the guillotine in a cocoa-nut shell; it 
 was really a very remarkable impression, con- 
 sidering that she had been broad awake 
 ever since she came to bed. As soon as 
 her eyes were opened she opened her mouth 
 likewise — to gasp out a little scream. For 
 something very tall and white was sitting 
 on the bedpost with folded arms. 
 
 "Why, Gypsy Breynton!" 
 
 "What?" 
 
 "What are you up there for?" 
 
 " Got up so's to keep awake. It's real 
 fun." 
 
 "Why, how your teeth chatter. Isn't it 
 cold up there?" 
 
 " Ra-ther. I don't know but I might as 
 well come down." 
 
 " I wonder," muttered Gypsy, drowsily, 
 just as Joy had begun in very thrilling 
 words to request Oliver Cromwell to have 
 
 mercy on her, and was about preparing to 
 
 176 
 
jump out of the cocoa-nut shell into Niag- 
 ara Falls, " I wonder what makes people 
 think it's a joke to lie awake." 
 
 "I don't believe they do," said Joy, with 
 a tinge in her voice of something that, to 
 say the least, was not hilarious. 
 
 "Yes they do," persisted Gypsy; "all the 
 girls in novels lie awake all night and cry 
 when their lovers go to Europe, and they 
 have a real nice time. Only it's most always 
 moonlight, and they talk out loud. I always 
 thought when I got large enough to have a 
 lover, I'd try it." 
 
 Joy dropped into another dream, and, 
 though not of interest to the public, it was a 
 very charming dream, and she felt decidedly 
 cross, when, at the end of another unknown 
 period Gypsy woke her up with a pinch. 
 
 "Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas!" 
 
 " What are you merry Christmassing for? 
 That's no fair. It isn't morning yet. Let 
 me alone." 
 
"Yes, it is morning too. I heard the 
 clock strike six ever so long ago. Get up 
 and build the fire." 
 
 "I don't believe it's morning. You can 
 build it yourself." 
 
 "No, it's your week. Besides, you made 
 me do it twice for you your last turn, and 
 I shan't touch it. Besides, it is morning." 
 
 Joy rose with a groan, and began to 
 fumble for the matches. All at once Gypsy 
 heard a very fervent exclamation. 
 
 "What's the matter?" 
 
 "The old thing's tipped over — every sin« 
 gle, solitary match!" 
 
 Gypsy began to laugh. 
 
 "It's nothing to laugh at," chattered Joy; 
 "I'm frozen almost to death, and this hor- 
 rid old fire won't do a thing but smoke." 
 
 Gypsy, curled up in the warm bed, smoth- 
 ered her laugh as best she could, to see Joy 
 crouched shivering before the stove-door, 
 blowing away frantically at the fire, her 
 
cheeks puffed out, her hands blue as in- 
 digo. 
 
 "There!" said Joy, at last; "I shan't 
 work any more over it. It may go out if 
 it wants to, and if it don't it needn't." 
 
 She came back to bed, and the fire mut- 
 tered and sputtered a while, and died out, 
 and shot up again, and at last made up its 
 mind to burn, and burned like a small volcano. 
 
 "What a noise that fire makes! I hope it 
 won't wake up mother. Joy, don't it strike you 
 as rather funny it doesn't grow light faster? " 
 
 " I don't know." 
 
 "Get up and look at the entry clock; 
 you're on the front side." 
 
 Poor Joy jumped out shivering into the 
 cold again, opened the door softly, and ran 
 out. She came back in somewhat of a 
 hurry, and shut the door with a bang. 
 
 " Gypsy Breynton ! " 
 
 "What?" 
 
 " If I ever forgive you!" 
 
" What is the matter? " 
 
 " It's just twenty- five minutes past 
 eleven! " 
 
 Gypsy broke into a ring- 
 ing laugh. Joy could 
 never bear to be laughed 
 at. 
 
 "/don't see anything 
 
 so terrible funny, and I 
 
 guess you wouldn't if 
 
 you'd made that old — " 
 
 "Fire; I know it. Just 'i| 
 
 ii 
 to think! — and you shivering /' 
 
 and blowing away at it. I x 
 
 never heard anything so funny ! " 
 
 "I think it was real mean in you to 
 wake me up, any way." 
 
 "Why, I thought I heard it strike six as 
 much as could be. Oh, dear, oh, dear !" 
 . Joy couldn't see the joke. But the story 
 of that memorable night was not yet fin- 
 ished. 
 
The faint, gray morning really came at 
 last, and the girls awoke in good earnest, 
 ready and glad to get up. 
 
 " I feel as if I'd been pulled through a 
 knothole,'' said Joy. 
 
 " I slept with one eye open all the time 
 I did sleep," said Gypsy, drearily. " I know 
 one thing. I'll never try to lie awake as 
 long as I live." 
 
 "Not when you have a lover go to 
 Europe? " 
 
 " Not if I have a dozen lovers go to 
 Europe. How is that fire going to be built, 
 I'd like to know? — every stick of wood burned 
 out last night." 
 
 There was no way but to go down into 
 the wood-shed and get some. It was yet 
 early, and quite dark. 
 
 "Go the back stairs," said Gypsy, " so's 
 not to wake people up." 
 
 Joy opened the door, and jumped, with a 
 scream that echoed through the silent entry. 
 
"Hush-sh! What is the matter?" 
 
 **A — a — it's a gJiost!" 
 
 "A ghost! Nonsense!" 
 
 Gypsy pushed by trembling Joy and ran 
 out. She, too, came back with a jump, and, 
 though she did not scream, she did not say 
 nonsense. 
 
 " What can it be?" 
 
 It certainly did look amazingly like a 
 ghost. Something tall and white and ghastly, 
 with awful arm extended. The entry was 
 very dark. 
 
 Joy sprang into bed and covered up her 
 face in the clothes. Gypsy stood still and 
 winked fast for about a minute. Then Joy 
 heard a fall and a bubbling laugh. 
 
 "That old Tom! It's nothing but a broom- 
 handle and a sheet. Oh, Joy, just come and 
 see! " 
 
 After that, Joy declared she wouldn't go 
 to the wood-shed alone, if she dressed with- 
 out a fire the rest of her life. So Gypsy 
 
started with her, and they crept down-stairs 
 on tiptoe, holding their very breath in their 
 efforts to be still, the stairs creeking at 
 every step. Did you ever particularly want 
 stairs to keep still, that they didn't creak 
 like thunder-claps? 
 
 The girls managed to get into the wood- 
 shed, fill their basket, and steal back into 
 the kitchen without mishap. Then came the 
 somewhat dubious undertaking of crawling 
 up-stairs in darkness that might be felt, with 
 a heavy and decidedly uncertain load of wood. 
 
 " I'll go first and carry the basket," said 
 Gypsy. " One can do it easier than two." 
 
 So she began to feel her way slowly up. 
 
 "It's black as Egypt! Joy, why don't 
 you come? " 
 
 "I'm caught on something — oh!" Down 
 fell something with an awful crash that 
 echoed and reechoed, and resounded through 
 the sleeping house. It was succeeded by an 
 utter silence. 
 
 183 
 
*' What is it ? " breathed Gypsy, faintly. 
 
 ' ' The clothes-horse, and every one of Patty's 
 clean clothes ! " 
 
 Scarcely were the words off from Joy's 
 lips, when Gypsy, sitting down on the stairs 
 to laugh, tipped over her basket, and every 
 solitary stick of that wood clattered down 
 the uncarpeted stairs, thumped through the 
 banisters, bounced on the floor, rolled into 
 the corners, thundered against the cellar door. 
 I don't believe you ever heard such a noise 
 in all your life. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Breynton ran from one di- 
 rection, Tom from another, Winnie from a 
 third, and Patty, screaming, in fearful disJia- 
 bille, from the attic, and the congress that 
 assembled in that entry where sat Gypsy 
 speechless on one stair, and Joy on another, 
 the power fails me to describe. 
 
 But this was the end of that Christmas 
 night. 
 
 It should be recorded that the five-dollar 
 
bill and the portfolio with purple roses on 
 it were both forthcoming that day, and that 
 Gypsy entirely forgot any difference between 
 her own little gifts and Joy's. This was 
 partly because she had somehow learned to 
 be glad in the difference, if it pleased Joy; 
 partly because of a certain look in her 
 mother's eyes when she saw the picture- 
 frame. Such a look made Gypsy happy for 
 days together. 
 
 That Christmas was as merry as Christmas 
 can be, but the best part of it all was the 
 sight of Peace Maythorne's face as she lay 
 twining the gorgeous worsteds over her thin 
 fingers, the happy sunlight touching their 
 colors of crimson, and royal purple, and 
 orange, and woodland brown, just as kindly 
 as it was touching the new Christmas jewels 
 over which many another young girl in 
 many another home sat laughing that morn- 
 ing. 
 
 But Gypsy long remembered — she remem- 
 185 
 
bers now with dim eyes and quivering 
 smile — how Peace drew her face down softly 
 on the pillow, pointing to the blue and 
 golden words upon the wall, and said in a 
 whisper that nobody else heard: 
 
 "That is best of all. Oh, Gypsy, when 
 I woke up in the morning and found it ! " 
 
 186 
 

 SHOULD think we might, I'm sure," 
 said Joy pausing, with a crisp bit of 
 halibut on her fork, just midway be- 
 tween her plate and her lips. 
 " You needn't shake your head so, Mother 
 Breynton," said Gypsy, her great brown 
 eyes pleading over her tea-cup with their 
 very most irresistible twinkle. " Now it 
 isn't the slightest trouble to say yes, and 
 you can just as well say it now as anj' 
 other time, you know." 
 
 " But it really seems to me a little dan- 
 187 
 
gerous, Gypsy, — up over those mountain 
 roads on livery-stable horses." 
 
 "But Tom says it isn't a bit dangerous, 
 and Tom's been up it forty times. Rattle- 
 snake has the best roads of any of the 
 mountains round here, and there are fences 
 by all the precipices, Tom said, didn't you, 
 Tom?" 
 
 " No," said Tom, coolly. " There isn't a 
 fence. There are logs in some places, and 
 in some there aren't.". 
 
 "Oh, what a bother you are! Well, c.ny 
 way it's all the same, and I'm not a bit 
 afraid of stable horses. I can manage any 
 of them, from Mr. Burt's iron-gray colt 
 down," which was true enough. Gypsy was 
 used to riding, and perfectly fearless. 
 
 " But Joy hasn't ridden much, and I 
 should never forgive myself if any accident 
 .happened to her while her father is gone." 
 
 "Joy can ride Billy. There isn't a cow 
 in York bury safer." 
 
Mrs. Breynton sipped her tea and thought 
 
 about it. 
 
 " I want to go horse-backing, too," put in 
 Winnie, glaring savagely at Gypsy over his 
 bread and milk. " I'm five years old." 
 
 "And jerked six whole buttons oft" your 
 jacket this very day," said Gypsy, eyeing 
 certain gaps of which there were always 
 more or less to be seen in Winnie's attire 
 in spite of his mother's care. "A boy who 
 jerks buttons like that couldn't go ' horse- 
 backing.' You wouldn't have one left by the 
 time you came home, — look out, you'll have 
 your milk over. You tipped it over times 
 enough this morning for one day." 
 
 " You will have your milk over; don't 
 stand the mug up on the napkin-ring, — no, 
 nor on that crust of bread, either," repeated 
 his mother, and everybody looked up anx- 
 iously, and edged away a little from Winnie's 
 immediate vicinity. This young gentleman 
 had a pleasing little custom of deluging the 
 
united family at meal-time, at least once 
 regularly every day, with milk and bread- 
 crumbs; maternal and paternal injunctions, 
 threats, and punishments notwithstanding, he 
 contrived every day some perfectly novel, 
 ingenious, and totally unexpected method of 
 accomplishing the same; uniting, in his 
 efforts, the strategy of a Napoleon, with the 
 unruffled composure of a Grant. 
 
 ." I don't know but what I'll see what 
 father thinks about it," Mrs. Breynton went 
 on, thoughtfully. " If he should be will- 
 ing — " 
 
 "Good, good!" cried Gypsy, clapping her 
 hands. " Father's in the library Winnie, 
 you run up and ask him if we can't go up 
 Rattlesnake." 
 
 "Well," said Winnie, "when I just get 
 through eatin'. I'm goin' to make him let 
 me horseback as much as you or anybody 
 else." 
 
 Winnie finished his toast with imperturba- 
 
ble deliberation, pushed back his chair, and 
 jumped up. 
 
 Splash! went a shower of milk all over 
 him, his mother, the table, and the carpet. 
 
 
 WJ w 
 
 Everybody jumped. Winnie gasped and stood 
 dripping. 
 
 " Oh-oh ! how did he do it? Why, Winnie 
 Breynton ! " 
 
For there hung the mug from his waist, 
 empty, upside down, tied to his bib. 
 
 "In a hard knot, if you'll believe it! I 
 never saw such a child in all my life ! Why, 
 Winnie ! " 
 
 The utter blankness of astonishment that 
 crept over Winnie's face when he looked 
 down and saw the mug hanging, Mr. Dar- 
 ley might have made a small fortune out 
 of; but the pen of a Cicero could not at- 
 tempt it. It appeared to be one of those 
 cases when " the heart feels most though 
 the lips move not." 
 
 " What did you do such a thing for ? 
 What could possess you ? " 
 
 " Oh," said Winnie, very red in the face, 
 "it's there, is it ? I was a steamboat, and 
 the mug was my stove-pipe, 'n then I for- 
 got. I want a clean apron. I don't want 
 any milk to-morrer." 
 
 This was in the early summer. The holi- 
 days had come and gone, and the winter 
 
and the spring. Coasting, skating, and snow- 
 balling had given place to driving hoop, 
 picking flowers, boating, and dignified prom- 
 enades on the fashionable pavement down 
 town; furs and bright woolen hoods, tippets, 
 mittens, and rubber-boots were exchanged for 
 calico dresses, comfortable, brown, bare 
 hands, and jaunty straw hats with feathers 
 on them. On the whole, it had been a 
 pleasant winter: times there had been when 
 Gypsy heartily wished Joy had never come, 
 when Joy heartily wished she were at home; 
 certain little jealousies there had been, sel- 
 fish thoughts, unkind acts, angry words; but 
 many penitent hours as well, some confes- 
 sions, the one to the other, that nobody else 
 heard, and a certain faint, growing interest 
 in each other. Strictly speaking, they did 
 not very much love each other yet, but they 
 were not far from it. "I am getting used 
 to Joy " said Gypsy. " I like Gypsy ever 
 so much better than I did once," Joy wrote 
 
to her father. One thing they had learned 
 that winter. Every generous deed, every 
 thoughtful word, narrowed the distance be- 
 tween them; each one wiped out the ugly 
 memory of some past impatience, some past 
 unkindness. And now something was about 
 to happen that should bring them nearer to 
 each other than anything had done yet. 
 
 That June night on which they sat at the 
 tea-table discussing the excursion up Rattle- 
 snake was the beginning of it. When Win- 
 nie was sufficiently mopped up to admit of 
 his locomotion about the house with any 
 safety to the carpets, he was dispatched to 
 the library on the errand to his father. 
 What with various wire-pullings of Gypsy's, 
 and arguments from Tom, the result was 
 that Mr. Breynton gave his consent to the 
 plan, on condition that the young people 
 would submit to his accompanying them. 
 
 ''That's perfectly splend," cried Gypsy; 
 " all the better for having you. Only, my 
 
best beloved of fathers, you mustn't keep 
 saying, ' Gypsy, Gypsy, be careful,' you 
 know, every time my horse jumps, because 
 if you should, I'm very much afraid." 
 
 "Afraid of what?" 
 
 "That Gypsy wouldn't be careful," said 
 the young lady, folding her hands demurely. 
 
Her father attempted to call her a sauce- 
 box, but Gypsy jumped upon his knee, and 
 pulled his whiskers till he cried out for 
 mercy, and gave her a kiss instead. 
 
 There was an undercurrent of reality in 
 the fun, however. Mr. Breynton's over-anx- 
 iety — fussiness, some people would have called 
 it — his children were perfectly conscious of; 
 children are apt to be the first to discover 
 their parents' faults and weaknesses. Gypsy 
 loved her father dearly, but she somehow 
 always felt as if he must be managed. 
 
 So it came about that on a certain royal 
 June day, a merry party started for a horse- 
 back ride up Rattlesnake mountain. 
 
 " I've a good mind to take my waterproof," 
 said Joy, as they were starting; "we may 
 not be back till late, and you know how cold 
 it grows by the river after dark." 
 
 "Nonsense!" laughed Gypsy; "why, tbe 
 thermometer's So° already." 
 
 Nevertheless, Joy went back and got the 
 
 196 
 
waterproof. She afterwards had occasion to 
 be very glad of it. 
 
 The party consisted of Mr. Breynton, Tom, 
 Joy, Gypsy, Mr. and Mrs. Hallam (this was 
 the Mrs. Hallam who had once been Gypsy's 
 teacher), Sarah Rowe, and her brother Fran- 
 cis, who was home from college on account 
 of ill health, he said. Tom always coughed 
 and arched his eyebrows in a very peculiar 
 way when this was mentioned, but Gypsy 
 could never find out what he did it for. 
 
 The day, as I said, was royal. The sky, 
 the river, the delicate golden green of the 
 young leaves and grass, the lights and shadows 
 on the distant mountains, all were mellowed 
 in together like one of Church's pictures, and 
 there was one of those spicy winds that Gypsy 
 always described by saying that " the angels 
 had been showering great bottles of fresh 
 cologne-water into them." 
 
 The young people felt these things in a 
 sort of dreamy, unconscious way, but they 
 
were too busy and too merry to notice them 
 in detail. 
 
 Joy was mounted safely on demure Billy, 
 and Gypsy rode — not Mr. Burt's iron-gray, 
 for Tom claimed that — but a free, though 
 manageable pony, with just the arch of the 
 neck, toss of the mane, and coquettish lifting 
 of the feet that she particularly fancied. The 
 rest were variously mounted: Francis Rowe 
 rode a fiery colt that his father had just 
 bought, and the like of which was not to 
 be seen in Yorkbury. 
 
 Up — up, winding on and away, through 
 odors of fragrant pines and unseen flowers, 
 under the soft, green shadows, through the 
 yellow lights. How beautiful — how beautiful 
 it was ! 
 
 "Who'll race with me?" inquired Mr. 
 Francis Rowe suddenly. " I call it an uncom- 
 mon bore, this doing nothing but looking at 
 the trees. I say, Breynton, the slope's easy 
 here for a quarter of a mile; come ahead." 
 
"No, thank you; I don't approve of racing 
 up mountains." 
 
 Tom might have said he didn't approve of 
 being beaten; the iron-gray was no match for 
 the colt, and he knew it. 
 
 "Who'll race?" persisted Mr. Francis, im- 
 patiently; "isn't there anybody?" 
 
 " I will,"' said Gypsy, seriously enough. 
 
 "You!" said Tom; "why, the colt would 
 leave that bay mare out of sight before 
 you could say Jack Robinson." 
 
 "Oh, I don't expect to beat. Of course 
 that's out of the question. But I should like 
 the run; where's the goal, Francis?" 
 
 " That turn in the road where the tall fir-tree 
 is, with those dead limbs; you see?" 
 
 "Yes. We'll trot, of course. All ready." 
 
 "Be very careful, Gypsy," called her 
 father, nervously; "I'm really almost afraid 
 to have you go. You might come to the 
 precipice sooner than you expect, and then 
 the horse may shy." 
 
" I'll be careful father; come, Nelly, 
 gently — whe-ee ! " 
 
 Suddenly reflecting that it was not supposed 
 to be ladylike to whistle, Gypsy drew her 
 lips into a demure pucker, touched Nelly 
 with the tassel of her whip, and flew away 
 up the hill on a brisk trot. Mr. Francis con- 
 descendingly checked the full speed of the 
 colt, and they rode on pretty nearly side by 
 side. 
 
 " I'm afraid, in justice to my horse, I 
 must really come in first," began Mr. Francis, 
 loosening his rein as they neared the fir-tree. 
 
 " Oh, of course," said Gypsy, with a 
 twinkle in her eyes; "I didn't undertake to 
 beat." 
 
 Now Nelly had a trick with which Gypsy 
 was perfectly familiar, of breaking into a 
 run at an instant's notice, if she were 
 pinched in a certain spot on her neck. 
 Suddenly, while the colt was springing on in 
 his fleet trot, and Mr. Francis supposed Gypsy 
 
was a full eight feet behind, he was utterly 
 confounded to see her flying- past him on a 
 bounding gallop, her hair tossing in the 
 wind, her cheeks scarlet, her eyes triumphant. 
 
 But right in the middle of the road, be- 
 tween them and the fir-tree, was something 
 neither of them had seen; — a huge tree just 
 fallen, with its high, prickly branches on. 
 
 "Jerusalem!" said Mr. Francis, under his 
 breath as the colt pricked up his ears 
 ominously. 
 
 "Oh, good! here's a jump," cried Gypsy, 
 and over it she went at a bound. The colt 
 reared and shied, and planting his dainty fore- 
 feet firmly on the ground, refused to stir 
 an inch. Gypsy whirled around and stood 
 triumphant under the fir-tree, her eyes snap- 
 ping merrily. 
 
 "Why, how did this ever happen?" cried 
 the rest, as they came laughing up. 
 
 ,-< I say, there's some witchcraft about this 
 business," remarked Mr. Francis, quite bewil- 
 
dered; "wait till I've cleared off these 
 branches, and we'll try that over again." 
 
 "Very well," said Gypsy, in a perfect 
 whirl of excitement and delight, as she 
 always was, with anything in the shape of 
 reins in her hand. But just then she looked 
 back and saw Joy toiling on slowly behind 
 the others; Billy with his head hanging and 
 his spirits quite gone. Gypsy stopped a 
 moment as if in thought, and then rode 
 slowly down the hill. 
 
 "I'm having a horrid time," said Joy 
 disconsolately, as she came up; " Billy is as 
 stupid as a mule, and won't go." 
 
 "I'm real sorry," said Gypsy, slowly; ' you 
 might have Nelly. We'll change awhile." 
 
 "No," said Joy, "I'm afraid of Nelly. 
 Besides, you wouldn't like Billy any better 
 than I do. It's dreadfully stupid back here 
 alone, though. I wish I hadn't come." 
 
 " Francis," called Gypsy, " I guess I won't 
 race. I'm going to ride with Joy awhile." 
 
"Why, you needn't do that!" said Joy, 
 rather ashamed of her complaining". But 
 Gypsy did do it; and though her face had 
 clouded for the moment, a sunbeam broke 
 over it then that lasted the rest of the 
 day. 
 
 The day passed very much like other 
 picnics. They stopped in a broad, level 
 place on the summit of the mountain, tied 
 the horses where they could graze on the 
 long, tufted wood-grass, unpacked the dinner 
 baskets, and devoted themselves to buscuit 
 and cold tongue, tarts, lemonade and current 
 wine, through the lazy, golden nooning. 
 
 It was voted that they should not attempt 
 the long, hot ride down the mountain-side 
 until the blaze of the afternoon sun should 
 be somewhat cooled. So, after dinner they 
 went their several ways, finding amusement 
 for the sultry hours. Mr. Breynton and Tom 
 went off on a hunt after a good place to 
 water the horses; Francis Rowe betook him- 
 
self to a cigar; Sarah curled herself up on 
 the soft moss with her sack for a pillow, and 
 went to sleep; Mr. and Mrs. Hallam sat un- 
 der the trees and read Tennyson to each other. 
 
 " How terribly stupid that must be," said 
 Gypsy, looking on in supreme disgust ; 
 "let's you and I go off. I know a place 
 where there used to be some splendid fox- 
 berry blossoms, lot's of 'em, real pretty; 
 they looked just as if they were snipped 
 out of pearls with a pair of sharp scissors." 
 
 i4 I wouldn't go out of sight of us all," 
 called Mr. Breynton, as the two girls roamed 
 away together among the trees. 
 
 " But you are most out of sight now," 
 said Joy, presently. 
 
 " Oh, he didn't say we mustn't" an- 
 swered Gypsy. " He didn't mean we mustn't, 
 either. Father always worries so." 
 
 It would have been well for Gypsy if her 
 father's wish had been to her what her 
 mother's was — as binding as a command. 
 
" Just think," observed Gypsy, as they 
 strolled on through the fallen leaves and red- 
 cup mosses, "just think of their sitting still 
 and reading poetry on a picnic ! I can't get 
 over it. Miss Melville didn't used to do 
 such stupid things. It's just 'cause she's 
 married." 
 
 "How do you know but you'll do just the 
 same some day? " 
 
 "Catch me! I'm not going to be married 
 at all." 
 
 "Not going to be married! Why, I am, 
 and I'm going to have a white velvet dress 
 too." 
 
 Well, you may. But I wouldn't for a 
 whole trunkful of white velvet dresses — no, 
 I wouldn't for two dozen trunkfuls. I'm not 
 going to stay home and keep house, and 
 look sober, with my hair done up behind. 
 I'd rather be an old maid, and have a pony 
 and run round in the woods." 
 
 "Why, I never saw such a girl!" ex- 
 
 205 
 
claimed Joy, opening her small eyes wide; 
 " I wouldn't be an old maid for anything. 
 I'm going to be married in St. Paul's, and 
 I'm going to have my dress all caught up 
 with orange buds, and spangles on my veil. 
 Therese and I, we planned it all out one 
 night — Therese used to be my French nurse, 
 you know." 
 
 For answer, Gypsy threw herself down 
 suddenly on the velvet moss, her eyes turned 
 up to the far, hazy sky, showing in patches 
 through a lace work of thousands of leaves. 
 
 "Joy," she said, breaking a silence, and 
 speaking in a curious, earnest tone Gypsy sel- 
 dom used, "I do really, though, sometimes 
 go off alone where there are some trees, and 
 wonder." 
 
 " Wonder what?" 
 
 " What in this world I was ever made for. 
 I suppose there's got to be a reason." 
 
 "A reason!" said Joy, blankly. 
 
 " There's got to be something done, for all 
 
I see. God doesn't make people live on and 
 on and die, for nothing - . One can't be a little 
 girl all one's life, climbing trees and making 
 
 snowballs," said Gypsy, half dreamily, half 
 impatiently, jumping up and walking on. 
 
 So they wandered away and away, deeper 
 into the heart of the forest, through moss and 
 tufted grasses, and tangles of mountain flowers, 
 
chatting as girls will, in their silly, merry 
 way, with now and then a flash of graver 
 thought like this of Gypsy's. 
 
 "You're sure you know the way back," 
 said Joy, presently. 
 
 " Oh, yes; I've been over it forty times. 
 We've turned about a good many times, but 
 I don't think we've gone very far from the 
 top of the mountain." 
 
 So, deeper, and further, and on, where the 
 breath of the pines was sweet ; where hidden blos- 
 soms were folding their cups for the night, and 
 the shadows in the thickets were growing gray. 
 
 "Gypsy!" said Joy, suddenly, "we're cer- 
 tainly going down hill!" 
 
 "So we are," said Gypsy, thoughtfully; 
 "it's getting dark, too. They'll be ready to 
 start for home. I guess we'll go back now." 
 
 They turned then, and began rapidly to 
 retrace their steps, over brambles and stones 
 and fallen trees; through thickets, and up 
 projecting rocks — very rapidly. 
 
"It is growing dark," said Gypsy, half un- 
 der her breath; "why didn't we find it out 
 before? " 
 
 "Gypsy," said Joy, after a silence, "do you 
 remember that knot of white birches? I don't." 
 
 Gypsy stopped and looked around. 
 
 " N-no, I don't know as I do. But I dare 
 say we saw them and forgot. Let's walk a 
 little faster. 
 
 They walked a little faster. They walked 
 quite as fast as they could go. 
 
 " See that great pile of rock," said Joy s 
 presently, her voice trembling a little; "I 
 know we didn't come by. that before. It 
 looks as if there were a precipice off there." 
 
 Gypsy made no answer. She was looking 
 keenly around, her eyes falling on every rock, 
 stump, tree, and flower, in search of the tiny, 
 trodden path by which they had left the sum- 
 mit of the mountain. But there was no path. 
 Only the bramble, and the grass, and the 
 tangled thickets. 
 
It was now very dark. 
 
 "I guess this is the way," spoke up Gypsy, 
 cheerfully — "here. Take hold of my hand, 
 Joy, and we'll run. I think I know where 
 the path is. We had turned off from it a 
 little bit." 
 
 Joy took her hand, and they ran on to- 
 gether. It grew darker, and grew darker. 
 They could scarcely see the sky now, and 
 the brambles grew high and thick and 
 strange. 
 
 Suddenly Gypsy stopped, knee-deep in a 
 jungle of blackberry bushes. 
 
 "Joy, I'm — afraid I don't — know the — 
 way." 
 
HE two girls, still clasping hands, 
 looked into each other's eyes. 
 Gypsy was very pale. 
 " Then we arc lost/" 
 
 Yes.' 
 
 Joy broke into a sort of sobbing cry. 
 Gypsy squeezed her hand very tightly, with 
 quivering lips. 
 
 "It's all my fault. I thought I knew. Oh, 
 Joy, I'm so sorry!" 
 
 She expected Joy to burst forth in a tor- 
 rent of reproaches;, once it would have been 
 so; but for some reason, Joy did not say 
 
an angry word. She only sobbed away 
 quietly, clutching at Gypsy's hand as if she 
 were very much frightened. She was fright- 
 ened thoroughly. The scene was enough to 
 terrify a far less timid child than Joy. 
 
 It was now quite dark. Over in the west 
 a faint, ghostly gleam of light still lingered, 
 seen dimly through the trees; but it only 
 made the utter blackness of the great forest- 
 shadows more horrible. The huge trunks of 
 the pines and maples towered up, up — 
 they could scarcely see how far, grim, and 
 gloomy and silent; here and there a dead 
 branch thrust itself out against the sky, in 
 that hideous likeness to a fleshless hand 
 which night and darkness always lend to 
 them. Even Gypsy, though she had been in 
 the woods many times at night before, 
 shuddered as she stood looking up. A queer 
 thought came to her, of an old fable she 
 had sometime read in Tom's mythology; a 
 fable of some huge Titans, angry and fierce, 
 
who tried to climb into heaven; there was 
 just that look about the trees. It was very 
 still. The birds were in their nests, their 
 singing done. From far away in some dis- 
 tant swamp came the monotonous, mournful 
 chant of the frogs — a dreary sound enough, 
 heard in a safe and warm and lighted home ; 
 unspeakably ugly if one is lost in a deso- 
 late forest. 
 
 Now and then a startled squirrel dropped 
 from bough to bough; or there was the 
 stealthy, sickening rustle of an unseen snake 
 among the fallen leaves. From somewhere, 
 too, where precipices that they could not 
 find dashed downwards into damp gullies, 
 cold, clinging mists were rising. 
 
 "To stay here all night!" sobbed Joy, 
 "Oh Gypsy, Gypsy!" 
 
 Gypsy was a brave, sensible girl, and after 
 that first moment of horror when she stood 
 looking up at the trees, her courage and her 
 wits came back to her. 
 
'■ I don't believe we shall have to stay 
 here all night," speaking in a decided, 
 womanly way, a little of the way her 
 mother had in a difficulty. 
 
 '"They are all over the mountain hunting 
 for us now. They'll find us before long, I 
 know. Besides, if they didn't, we could sit 
 down in a dry place somewhere, and wait 
 till morning; there wouldn't anything hurt us. 
 Oh, you brought your waterproof — good! Put 
 it on and button it up tight." 
 
 Joy had the cloak folded over her arm. 
 She did passively as Gypsy told her. When 
 it was all buttoned, she suddenly remembered 
 that Gypsy wore only her thin, nankeen sack, 
 and she offered to share it with her. 
 
 "No," said Gypsy, " I don't want it. 
 Wrap it around your throat as warm as you 
 can. I got you into this scrape, and now I'm 
 going to take care of you. Now let's halloa." 
 
 And halloa they did, to the best of their 
 ability; Joy in her feeble, frightened way, 
 
Gypsy in loud shouts, and strong, like a 
 boy's. But there was no answer. They 
 called again and again; they stopped after 
 each cry, with breath held in, and head bent 
 to listen. Nothing was to be heard but the 
 frogs and the squirrels and the gliding snakes. 
 
 Joy broke out into fresh sobs. 
 
 "Well, it's no use to stand here any 
 longer," said Gypsy; "let's run on." 
 
 "Run where? You don't know which way. 
 What shall we do, what shall we do? " 
 
 "We'll go this way — we haven't tried it at 
 all. I shouldn't wonder a bit if the path 
 were right over there where it looks so black. 
 Besides, we shall hear them calling for us." 
 
 Ah, if there had been anybody to tell 
 them ! In precisely the other direction, the 
 picnic party, roused and frightened, were 
 searching every thicket, and shouting their 
 names at every ravine. Each step the girls 
 took now sent 'hem so much further away 
 from help. 
 
While they were running on, still hand in 
 hand, Joy heard the most remarkable sound. 
 It was a laugh from Gypsy — actually a soft, 
 merry laugh, breaking out like music on the 
 night air, in the dreary place. 
 
 •'Why, Gypsy Breynton! What can you 
 find to laugh at, I should like to know?" said 
 Joy, provoked enough to stop crying at very 
 short notice. 
 
 "Oh, dear, I really can't help it," apologized 
 Gypsy, choking down the offending mirth; 
 "but I was thinking — I couldn't help it, Joy, 
 now, possibly — how mad Francis Rowe will 
 be to think he's got to stop and help hunt 
 us up ! " 
 
 "I wonder what that black thing is ahead 
 of us," said Joy, presently. They were still 
 running on together, but their hands were not 
 joined just at that moment. Joy was a little 
 in advance. 
 
 "I'm sure I don't know," said Gypsy, eyeing 
 it intently. The words were scarcely off from 
 
her lips before she cried out with a loud cry, 
 and sprang forward, clutching at Joy's dress. 
 
 She was too late. 
 
 Joy tripped over a mass of briars, fell, rolled 
 heavily — not over upon the ground, but off. 
 Off into horrible, utter darkness. Down, with 
 outstretched hands and one long shriek. 
 
 Gypsy stood as if someone had charmed her 
 into a marble statue, her hands thrown above 
 her head, her eyes peering into the blank 
 darkness below. 
 
 She stood so for one instant only; then she 
 did what only wild, impulsive Gypsy would 
 have done. She went directly down after Joy, 
 clinging with her hands and feet to the side 
 of the cliff; slipping, rolling, getting to her 
 feet again, tearing her clothes, her hands, her 
 arms — down like a ball, bounding, bouncing, 
 blinded, bewildered. 
 
 If it had been four hundred feet, there is no 
 doubt she would have gone just the same. It 
 proved to be only ten, and she landed some- 
 
where on a patch of soft grass, except for her 
 scratches and a bruise or two, quite unhurt. 
 
 Something lay here beside her, flat upon 
 the ground. It was Joy. She lay perfectly 
 still. 
 
 A horrible fear came over Gypsy. She 
 crept up on her hands and knees, trying to see 
 her face through the dark, and just then Joy 
 moaned faintly. Gypsy's heart gave a great 
 thump. In that moment, in the moment of 
 that horrible fear and that great relief, Gypsy 
 knew for the first time that she loved Joy, and 
 how much. 
 
 "It's my ankle," moaned Joy; "it must be 
 broken — I know it's broken." 
 
 It was not broken, but very badly sprained. 
 
 "Can you stand on it?" asked Gypsy, her 
 face almost as pale as Joy's. 
 
 Joy tried to get to her feet, but fell heavily, 
 with a cry of pain. 
 
 Gypsy looked around her with dismay. 
 Above, the ten feet of rock shot steeply; across 
 
the gully towered a high, dark wall; at each 
 end, shelving stones were piled upon each 
 other. They had fallen into a sort of unroofed 
 cave, — a hollow, shut in completely and im- 
 passably. Impassably to Joy; there could be 
 no doubt about that. To leave her there 
 alone was out of the question. There was 
 but one thing to be done; there was no alter- 
 native. 
 
 "We must stay here all night, said Gypsy, 
 slowly. She had scarcely finished her sen- 
 tence when she sprang up, her lips parted and 
 white. 
 
 "Joy, see, see! what is that ? " 
 
 "What? Where?" asked Joy between her 
 sobs. 
 
 ' ' There ! isn't that smoke ? " 
 
 A distinct, crackling sound answered her, as 
 of something fiercely licking up the dead 
 leaves and twigs, — a fearful sound to hear in a 
 great forest. At the same instant a white 
 cloud of smoke puffed down almost into their 
 
faces. Before they had time to stir or cry out, 
 a great jet of yellow flame shot up on the 
 edge of the cliff, glared far into the shadow 
 of the forest, lighted up the ravine with an 
 awful brightness. 
 
 The mountain was on fire. 
 
 Gypsy sat for the instant without speaking 
 or moving. She seemed to herself to have no 
 words to say, no power of motion. She knew 
 far better than Joy what those five words 
 meant. A dim remembrance came to her — 
 and it was horrible that it should come to her 
 just then — of something she had seen when 
 she was a very little girl, and never forgotten, 
 and never would forget. A mountain burn- 
 ing for weeks, and a woman lost on it; all 
 the town turned out in an agony of search ; 
 the fires out one day, and a slow procession 
 winding down the blank, charred slope, bear- 
 ing something closely covered, that no one 
 looked upon. 
 
 She sprang up in an agony of terror. 
 
"Oh, Joy, can't you walk? We shall die 
 here! We shall be burned to death! " 
 
 At that moment a naming branch fell hiss- 
 ing into a little pool at the bottom of the 
 gull) r . It passed so near them that it singed 
 a lock of Gypsy's hair. 
 
 Joy crawled to her feet, fell, crawled up 
 again, fell again. 
 
 Gypsy seized her in both arms, and dragged 
 her across the gully. Joy was taller than 
 herself, and nearly as heavy. How she did it 
 she never knew. Terror gave her a flash of 
 that sort of strength which we sometimes find 
 among the insane. 
 
 She laid Joy down in a corner of the ravine 
 the furthest removed from the fire; she could 
 not have carried her another inch. Above and 
 all around towered and frowned the rocks; 
 there was not so much as a crevice opening 
 between them; there was not a spot that Joy 
 could climb. Across, the great tongues of 
 flame tossed themselves into the air. and 
 
glared awfully against the sky, which was dark 
 with hurrying clouds. The underbrush was 
 all on fire; two huge pine trees were ablaze, 
 their branches shooting off hotly now and 
 then like rockets. 
 
 When those trees fell they would fall into the 
 ravine. 
 
 Gypsy sat down and covered her face. 
 
 Little did Mr. Francis Rowe think what he 
 had done, when, strolling along by the ravine 
 at twilight, he threw down his half-burnt 
 cigar: threw it down and walked away whist- 
 ling, and has probably never thought of it 
 from that day to this. 
 
 Gypsy sat there with her hands before her 
 face, and she sat very still. She understood 
 in that moment w T hat was coming to her and 
 to Joy. Yes, to her as well as to Joy; for she 
 would not leave Joy to die alone. It would 
 be an easy thing for her to climb the cliffs; 
 she was agile, fearless, as used to the moun- 
 tains as a young chamois, and the ascent, as I 
 
said, though steep, was not high. Once out 
 of that gully where death was certain, she 
 would have at least a chance of life. The 
 fire if not checked would spread rapidly, 
 would chase her down the mountain. But 
 that she could escape it she thought was 
 probable, if not sure. And life was so sweet, 
 so dear. And her mother — poor mother, wait- 
 ing at home, and looking and longing for her! 
 
 Gypsy gave a great gulp; there was such 
 a pain in her throat it seemed as if it 
 would strangle her. But should she leave 
 Joy, crippled and helpless, to die alone in 
 this horrible place? Should she do it? No, 
 it was through her careless fault that they 
 had been brought into it. She would stay 
 with Joy. 
 
 "I don't see as we can do anything,'' 
 she said, raising her head. 
 
 " Shall we be burned to death?" shrieked 
 Joy. " Gypsy, Gypsy, shall we be burned 
 to death? " 
 
 223 
 
A huge, hot branch flew into the gully 
 while she spoke, hissing as the other had 
 done, into the pool. The glare shot deeper 
 and redder into the forest, and the great 
 trees writhed in the flames like human 
 things. 
 
 The two girls caught each other's hands. 
 To die — to die so horribly ! One moment 
 to be sitting there, well and strong, so full 
 of warm, young life; the next to lie buried 
 in a hideous tangle of fallen, flaming trunks, 
 their bodies consuming to a little heap of 
 ashes that the wind would blow away to- 
 morrow morning; their souls — where? 
 
 "I wish I'd said my prayers every day," 
 sobbed Joy, weakly. "I wish I'd been a 
 good girl ! " 
 
 " Let's say them now, Joy. Let's ask 
 Him to stop the fire. If He can't, maybe 
 He'll let us go to heaven anyway." 
 
 So Gypsy knelt down on the rocks that 
 were becoming hot now to the touch, and 
 
began the first words that came to her: — 
 "Our Father which art in Heaven," and 
 faltered in them, sobbing, and began again, 
 and went through somehow to the end. 
 
 After that, they were still a moment. 
 
 "Joy," said Gypsy then, faintly, "I've 
 been real ugly to you since you've been at 
 our house." 
 
 " I've scolded you, too, a lot, and made 
 fun of your things. I wish I hadn't. 
 
 " If we could only get out of here, I'd 
 never be cross to you as long as ever I 
 live, and I wish you'd please to forgive 
 me." 
 
 "I will if — if you'll forgive me, you know. 
 Oh, Gypsy, it's growing so hot over here!" 
 
 " Kiss me, Joy." 
 
 They kissed each other through their sobs. 
 
 "Mother's in the parlor now, watching 
 for us, and Tom and — " 
 
 Gypsy's sentence was never finished. There 
 was a great blazing and crackling, and one 
 
of the trees fell, swooping' down with a 
 crash. It fell across the ravine, lying there, 
 a bridge of flame, and lighting the under- 
 brush upon the opposite side. One tree 
 stood yet. That would fall, when it fell, 
 directly into the corner of the gully where 
 the girls were crouched up against the 
 rocks. And then Joy remembered what in 
 her terror she had not thought of before. 
 
 "Gypsy, you can climb! don't stay here 
 with me. What are you staying for? " 
 
 "You needn't talk about that," said 
 Gypsy, with faltering voice, "if it hadn't 
 been for me you wouldn't be here. I'm not 
 going to sneak off and leave you, — not any 
 such thing! " 
 
 Whether Gypsy would have kept this re- 
 solve — and very like Gypsy it was, to make 
 it — when the flames were actually upon 
 her; whether, indeed, she ought to have 
 kept it, are questions open to discussion. 
 Something happened just then that saved 
 
the trouble of deciding. It was nothing but 
 a clap of thunder, to be sure, but I wonder 
 if you have any idea how it sounded to 
 those two girls. 
 
 It was a tremendous peal, and it was fol- 
 lowed by a fierce lightning-flash and a second 
 peal, and then by something that the girls 
 stretched out their arms to with a great cry, 
 as if it had been an angel from heaven. A 
 shower almost like the bursting of a cloud. — 
 great, pelting drops, hissing down upon the 
 flaming tree; it seemed like a solid sheet of 
 water; as if the very flood-gates of heaven 
 w r ere open. 
 
 The cruel fire hissed and sputtered, and shut 
 up in angry jets, and died in puffs of sullen 
 smoke; the glaring bridge blackened slowly; 
 the pine-tree, swayed by the sudden winds. 
 fell into the forest, and the ravine was safe. 
 The flames, though not quenched, — it might 
 take hours to do that, — were thoroughly 
 checked. 
 
And who was that with white, set face, 
 and outstretched hands, springing over the 
 smoking logs, leaping down into the ravine? 
 
 "Oh, Tom, Tom! Oh, father, here we 
 are' " 
 
O go to Washington? 
 
 "Go to Washington!" 
 
 " Did yon ever? " 
 
 "Never! " 
 " See the President." 
 
 "And the White House and the soldiers." 
 "And the donkeys and all." 
 " I know it." 
 
 " Father Breynton, if you're not just mag- 
 nificent! " 
 
 This classical conversation took place on a 
 
certain Wednesday morning in that golden 
 June which the picnic ushered in. And such 
 a hurrying and scampering, and mending and 
 making of dresses, such a trimming of sum- 
 mer hats and packing of trunks and valises, 
 as there was the rest of that week! 
 
 " You'd better believe we're busy," Gypsy 
 observed, with a very superior air, to Mrs. 
 Surly, who had "just dropped in to find out 
 what that flyaway Gypsy had been screechin' 
 round the house so for, these two days past." 
 
 " You'd better believe we have enough to 
 do. Joy's got two white skirts to have tucked 
 in little bits of tucks, and she's sent to Bos- 
 ton for a new veil. Mother's made me a 
 •whole new dress to wear in the cars, and 
 I've got a beautiivl brown feather for my 
 turban. Besides, we're going to see the 
 President, and what do you think? Father 
 says there are ever so many mules in Wash- 
 ington. W T on't I sit at the windows and see 
 'em go by ! " 
 
 230 
 
Thursday, Friday, Saturday passed; Sun- 
 day began and ended in a rain-storm; Mon- 
 day came like a dream, with warm, sweet 
 winds, and dewdrops quivering in a blaze of 
 unclouded light. Like a dream it seemed to 
 the girls to be hurrying away at five o'clock, 
 from an unfinished breakfast, from Mrs. 
 Breynton's gentle good-bye, Tom's valuable 
 patronage and advice, and Winnie's reminder 
 that he was five years old, and that to the 
 candid mind it was perfectly clear that he 
 ought "to go too-o-oo." 
 
 Ve*ry much like a dream was it, to be 
 walking on the platform at the station, in 
 the tucked skirts and new brown feather; 
 to watch the checking of the trunks and 
 buying of the tickets, quite certain that 
 they were different from all other checks 
 and tickets; to find how interesting the 
 framed railway and steamboat guide for the 
 Continent, on the walls of the little dingy 
 ladies' room, suddenly became, — at least. 
 
until the pleasing discovery that it was 
 printed in 1849, and gave minute directions 
 for reaching the Territory of California. 
 
 More like a dream was it, to watch the 
 people that lounged or worked about the 
 depot; the ticket-master, who had stood 
 shut up there just so behind the little win- 
 dow for twenty years; the baggage-master, 
 who tossed about their trunks without ever 
 thinking of the jewelry-boxes inside, and 
 that cologne-bottle with the shaky cork; 
 the cross-eyed woman with her knitting-work, 
 who sold sponge-cake and candy behind a 
 very small counter; the small boys in sin- 
 gularly airy jackets, who were putting pins 
 and marbles on the track for the train to 
 run over; the old woman across the street, 
 who was hanging out her clothes to dry in 
 the back yard, just as if it had been 
 nothing but a common Monday, and no- 
 body had been going to Washington ; — how 
 strange it seemed that they could all be 
 
living on and on just as they did every- 
 day! 
 
 "Oh, just think! said Gypsy, with wide 
 open eyes. Did you ever? Isn't it funny? 
 Oh, I wish they could go off and have a 
 good time too." 
 
 Still like a dream did it seem, when the 
 train shrieked up and shrieked them away, 
 over and down the mountains, through sun- 
 light and shadow, by forest and river, 
 past village and town and city, away like 
 an arrow, with Yorkbury out of sight, and 
 out of mind, and only the wonderful, untried 
 days that were coming, to think about, — 
 ah, who would think of anything else, that 
 could have such days? 
 
 Gypsy made her entrance into Boston in 
 a very distingue style. It chanced that just 
 after they left Fitchburg, she espied the 
 stone pier of an unfinished bridge, sur- 
 mounted by a remarkable boy standing on 
 his head. Up went the car-window, and 
 
out went her own head and one shoulder, 
 the better to obtain a view of the phe- 
 nomenon. 
 
 "Look out, Gypsy," said her father un- 
 easily. "If another train should come 
 along, that is very dangerous." 
 
 "Yes, sir," said Gypsy, with a twinkle in 
 her eye, "I am looking out." 
 
 Now, as Mr. Breynton had been on the 
 continual worry about her ever since they 
 left Yorkbury, afraid she would catch cold 
 in the draft, lose her glove out of the win- 
 dow, go out on the platform, or fall in 
 stepping from car to car, Gypsy did not pay 
 the immediate heed to his warning that she 
 ought to have done. Before he had time 
 to speak again, puff! came a sharp gust of 
 wind and away went her pretty turban with 
 its new brown feather, — over the bridge 
 and down into the river. 
 
 "There!" said Toy. 
 
 "Gypsy, my dear!''' said her father. 
 
• ■ Well, anyway, " said 
 Gypsy, drawing in her head in 
 the utmost astonishment, " I 
 can wear a handkerchief." 
 
 So into Boston she came 
 with nothing but a hand- 
 kerchief tied over her bright, 
 tossing hair. You ought to 
 have seen the hackmen 
 laugh ! 
 
 The girls made an agree- 
 ment with Mrs. Breynton 
 to keep a journal while they 
 were gone; send her what 
 they could, and read the rest of it to her when 
 they came home. She thought in this way they 
 would remember what they saw more easily, 
 and with much less confusion and mistake. 
 These journals will give you a better account 
 of their journey than I can do. 
 
 They wrote first from New York. This is 
 what Joy had to say: — 
 
New YORK, June 17, — Tuesday Night. 
 
 "Oh, I'm so tired! We've been 'on the go' 
 all day. You see, we got into Boston last 
 night, and took the boat, you know, just as 
 we expected to. I've been on so forty times 
 with father; he used to take me ever so often 
 when he went on business; so I was just as 
 used to it, and went right to sleep; but Gypsy, 
 you know, she's never been to New York any 
 way, and never was on a steamer, and you 
 ought to have seen her keep hopping up in hei 
 berth to look at things and listen to things ! I 
 expected as much as could be she'd fall down 
 on me — I had the under berth — and I don't 
 believe she slept very much. I don't care so 
 much about New York as she does, either, 
 because I've seen it all. Uncle thought we'd 
 stay here a day so as to look about. He wanted 
 Gypsy to see some pictures and things. To- 
 morrow morning real early we go to Phila- 
 delphia. You don't know what a lovely bon- 
 net I saw up Fifth Avenue to-day. It was 
 236 
 
white crape, with the dearest little loves of 
 forget-me-nots outside and in, and then a 
 white veil. I'm going- to make father buy me 
 one just like it as soon as I go out of mourning. 
 
 " I expect this isn't very much like a jour- 
 nal, but I'm terribly sleepy, and I guess I must 
 go to bed." 
 
 GYPSY'S JOURNAL. 
 
 " Brevoort House, Tuesday Night. 
 
 "Mother, Mother Breynton! I never had 
 such a good time in all my life ! Oh, I forgot 
 to say I haven't any more idea how to write a 
 journal than the man in the moon. I meant to 
 put that at the beginning so you'd know. 
 
 "Well, we came on by boat, and you've no 
 idea how that machinery squeaked. I laughed 
 and laughed, and I kept waking up and laugh- 
 ing. 
 
 "Then — oh, did Joy tell you about my hat? 
 I suppose you'll be sorry, but I don't believe 
 you can help laughing possibly. I just lost it 
 out of the car window, looking at a boy out in 
 
the river standing on its head. I mean the 
 boy was on his head, not the river, and I had 
 to come into Boston tied up in a handkerchief. 
 Father hurried off to get me a new hat, 'cause 
 there wasn't any time for me to go with him, 
 and what do you suppose he bought? I don't 
 think you'd ever get over it, if you were to see 
 it. It was a white turban with a black edge 
 rolled up, and a great fringe of blue beads and 
 Si green feather/ He said he bought it at the 
 first milliner's he came to, and I should think 
 he did. I guess you'd better believe I felt nice 
 going all the way to New York in it. This 
 morning I ripped off the blue fringe the very 
 first thing, and went into Broadway (isn't it a 
 big street? and I never saw such tall police- 
 men with so many whiskers and such a lot of 
 ladies to be helped across) and bought some 
 black velvet ribbon with a white edge to match 
 the straw; the green feather wasn't nice 
 enough to wear. I knew I oughtn't to have 
 lost the other, and father paid five dollars for 
 
this horrid old thing, so I thought I wouldn't 
 take it to a milliner. I just trimmed it up my- 
 self in a rosette, and it doesn't look so badly 
 after all. But oh, my pnetty brown feather! 
 Isn't it a shame? 
 
 ''Father took us to the Aspinwall picture- 
 gallery to-day. Joy didn't care about it, but I 
 liked it ever so much, only there were ever so 
 many Virgin Marys up in the clouds, that 
 looked as if they'd been washed out and hung 
 up to dry. Besides, I didn't understand 
 what all the little angels were kicking at. 
 Father said they were from the old masters, 
 and there was a lady with a pink parasol, that 
 screamed right out, and said they were sweet 
 pretty. I suppose when I'm grown up I shall 
 have to think so too. I saw a picture of a 
 little boy out in the woods, asleep, that I liked 
 ever so much better. 
 
 "We've seen ever so many other things, but 
 I haven't half time to tell you about them all. 
 
 "We're at the Brevoort House, and I 
 
 239 
 
tell you I was frightened when I first came 
 in, it's so handsome. We take our rooms, 
 and then just go down into the most splen- 
 did dining-hall, and sit down at little tables 
 and order what we want, and don't pay for 
 anything but that. Father says it's the 
 European plan. Our rooms are beautiful. 
 Don't you tell anybody, but I'm almost 
 afraid of the waiters and chambermaids; 
 they look as if they felt so grand. But Joy, 
 she just rings the bell and makes them 
 bring her up some water, and orders them 
 around like anything. Joy wanted to go to 
 the Fifth Avenue Hotel, but father said it 
 was too noisy. He says this is noisy enough, 
 but he wanted us to see what a handsome 
 hotel is like, and — and — why ! Fm almost 
 asleep. 
 
 JOY'S JOURNAL. 
 "Philadelphia, Wednesday, June 18. 
 "We came to Philadelphia this morning, 
 and we almost choked with the dust, riding 
 
through New Jersey. We're at a boarding- 
 house, — a new one just opened. They call 
 it the Markoe House. (I haven't the least 
 idea whether I've spelled it right.) Uncle 
 didn't sleep very well last night, so he 
 wanted a quiet place, and thought the hotels 
 were noisy. He thought once of going to 
 La Pierre, but gave it up. Father used to 
 go to the Continental, I know, because I've 
 heard him say so. I'm too tired to write 
 any more." 
 
 GYPSY'S JOURNAL. 
 
 " Thursday, June something or other. 
 
 "We stayed over a day here, — oh, 'here' 
 is Philadelphia, — because father wanted us 
 to see the city. It's real funny. People 
 have white wooden shutters outside their 
 windows, and when anybody dies they keep 
 a black ribbon hanging out on them. Then 
 the streets are so broad. I saw four Quak- 
 ers this morning. We've been out to see 
 Girard College, where they take care of orphans, 
 
and the man that built it, Mr. Stephen 
 Girard, he wouldn't ever let any minister 
 step inside it. Wasn't it funny in him? 
 
 ''Then we went over to Fairmount, besides. 
 Fairmount is where they bring up the water 
 from the Schuylkill river, to supply the city. 
 There is machinery to force it up — great 
 wheels and things. Then it makes a sort of 
 pond on top of a hill, and there are statues 
 and trees, and it's real beautiful. 
 
 " ' Father wanted to take us out to Laurel 
 Hill: — that's the cemetery, he says, very 
 much like Mount Auburn, near Boston, 
 where Aunt Miranda is buried. But we 
 shan't have time." 
 
 GYPSY'S JOURNAL. 
 
 " Friday Night. 
 "In Washington! in Washington! and I'm 
 too sleepy to write a thing about it." 
 
Chapter- xn 
 
 
 «A« 
 
 # 
 
 *TELEG1R 
 
 % 
 
 JOY'S JOURNAL. 
 
 " Saturday, June 21st. 
 "WELL, we are here at last, 
 and it is really very nice. I 
 didn't suppose I should like it 
 so much ; but there is a great 
 deal to be seen. We stopped over one train 
 at Baltimore. It rained like everything, but 
 uncle wanted us to see the city. So we took 
 a hack and drove about, and saw Washington's 
 monument. I suppose I ought to describe it, 
 but it was so rainy I didn't notice it very 
 much. I think monuments look like big 
 
ghosts, and then I'm always afraid they'll 
 tumble over on me. 
 
 ''Gypsy said she wondered whether George 
 Washington ever looked down out of heaven 
 to see the monuments, and cities, and 
 towns, and all the things that are named 
 after him, and what he thought about it. 
 Wasn't it queer in her? 
 
 "We stopped at a great cathedral there 
 is in Baltimore, too. It was very handsome, 
 only so dark. I saw some Irish women say- 
 ing their prayers round in the pews, and 
 there was a dish of holy water by the door, 
 and they all dipped their fingers in it and 
 crossed themselves as they went in and out. 
 
 "We saw ever so many negroes in Balti- 
 more, too. From the time you get to Phil- 
 adelphia, on to Washington, there are ever 
 so many; it's so different from New Eng- 
 land. I never saw so many there in all my 
 life as we have seen these few days. 
 Gypsy doubled up her fist and looked real 
 
angry when she saw them sometimes, and 
 said, "Just to think! perhaps that man is a 
 slave, or that little girl!" But I never 
 thought about it somehow. To-morrow I 
 will write about Washington. Baltimore has 
 taken up all my room." 
 
 GYPSY'S JOURNAL. 
 
 Willard's Hotel, Saturday Night. 
 "You ought to have seen the yellow 
 omnibus we came up from the depot in ! 
 Such a looking thing! It was ever so long, 
 something like a square stove-pipe, pulled 
 out; and it was real crowded, and the way 
 it jolted! There were several of them there 
 waiting for the passengers. I should think 
 they might have some decent, comfortable 
 horse-cars, the way they do in other cities. 
 I think it's very nice at Philadelphia. They 
 come to the depots at every train, and go 
 down at every train. Father says the horse- 
 car arrangements are better in Philadelphia 
 than the) T are in Boston or New York. 
 
 245 
 
" It seems very funny here, to be in a 
 city that is under military rule, There are 
 a great many soldiers, and barracks where 
 they sleep; and a great many tents, too. 
 There are forts, father says, all around the 
 city, and Monday we can see some of them. 
 While we were riding up from the depot I 
 saw six soldiers marching along with a Rebel 
 prisoner. Father says they found him hang- 
 ing around the Capitol, and that he was a 
 Rebel spy. He had on a ragged coat, and 
 a great many black whiskers, and he was 
 swearing terribly. I didn't feel sorry for 
 him a bit, and I hope they'll hang him, or 
 something; but father says he doesn't know. 
 
 "We are at Willard's Hotel. Father came 
 here for the same reason he went to the 
 Brevoort — so we might see what it was like. 
 It is very large, and so many stairs! and 
 such long dining-tables, and so many men 
 eating at them. We didn't have as nice a 
 supper as we did in New York. 
 246 
 
"It ie late now, and the lamps are 
 lighted in the streets. I can see from the 
 window the people hurrying by, and some 
 soldiers, and one funny little tired mule 
 drawing a great wagon of something. 
 
 "There! he's stopped and won't move an 
 inch, and the man is whipping him awfully. 
 The wicked old thing. ***** 
 
 "I was just going to open the window 
 and tell him to stop, but father says I 
 mustn't. 
 
 "As we rode up from the depot, I saw 
 a great round dim thing away in the dark. 
 Father says it is the dome of the Capitol." 
 GYPSY'S JOURNAL. 
 
 " After Sundown, Sunday Night. 
 
 "Father says it isn't any harm to write 
 a little about what we saw to-day, because 
 we haven't been anywhere except to church. 
 
 "The horrid old gong woke me up real 
 early this morning. I should have thought 
 it very late at home, but they don't have 
 247 
 
breakfast in hotels till eight . o'clock hardly 
 ever, and you can get up all along till 
 eleven, just as you like. This morning we 
 were so tired that we didn't want to get up 
 a bit. 
 
 '''There was a waiter at the table that 
 tipped over a great plateful of beefsteak and 
 gravy right on to a lady's blue silk morn- 
 ing-dress. She was a Senator's wife, and she 
 jumped like anything. Joy said, ' What a 
 shame ! ' but I think it's real silly in people 
 to wear blue silk morning-dresses, because 
 then you can't wear anything any nicer, and 
 you won't feel dressed up in the afternoon a 
 bit. — Oh, I forgot! this isn't Sunday! 
 
 "Well, we all went to church this morn- 
 ing to Dr. Gurley's church. Dr. Gurley is 
 a Presbyterian, father says. I don't care 
 anything about that, but I thought you 
 might. That is the church President Lin- 
 coln goes to, and we went there so as to see 
 him. 
 
 2±i 
 
" He sat clear up in front, and I couldn't 
 see anything all through the sermon but 
 the back of his head. We sat 'most down 
 by the door. Besides, there was a little boy 
 in the pew next ours that kept his father's 
 umbrella right over the top of the pew, and 
 made me laugh. He was just about as big 
 as Winnie. Oh, they say slip here instead 
 of pew, just as they do in Boston. I don't 
 see what's the use. Joy doesn't like it be- 
 cause I keep saying pew. She says it's 
 countrified. I think one is just as good as 
 another. 
 
 "Well, you see, we just waited, and father 
 looked at the minister, and Joy and I kept 
 watching the President's kid gloves. They 
 were black because he's in mourning for his 
 little boy, and he kept putting his hand to 
 his face a great deal. He moved round too, 
 ever so much. I kept thinking how tired 
 he was, working away all the week, taking 
 care of those great armies, and being scolded 
 
when we got beaten, just as if it were all 
 his fault. I think it is real good in him to 
 come to church anyway. If I were President 
 and had so much to do, and got so tired, 
 I'd stay at home Sundays and go to sleep, — 
 if you'd let me. I think President Lincoln 
 must be a very good man. I'm sure he is, 
 and I'll tell you why. 
 
 " After church we waited so as to see him. 
 There were ever so many strangers sitting 
 there together, — about fifty I should say, 
 but father laughed and said twenty. Well, 
 we all stood up, and he began to walk 
 down the aisle with his wife, and I saw his 
 face, and he isn't homely, but he looks real 
 kind, and oh, mother! so sober and sad! and 
 I know he's a good man, and that's why. 
 
 " Mrs. Lincoln was dressed all in black, 
 with a long crape veil. She kind of peeked 
 out under it, but I couldn't see her very 
 well, and I didn't think much about her be- 
 cause I was looking at him 
 250 
 
''Well, then, you see there were some 
 people in front of me, and I couldn't see very- 
 well, so I just stepped up on a cricket so's to 
 be tall, and what do you think ? When the 
 President was opposite, just opposite, and 
 looked round at us, that old cricket had to tip 
 over, and down I went, flat, in the bottom of 
 the pew! 
 
 "I guess my cheeks were as red as two 
 beets when I got up; and the President saw 
 me, and he looked right at me, — right into 
 my eyes and laughed. He did now, really, 
 and he looked as if he couldn't help it, pos- 
 sibly. 
 
 "When he laughs it looks like a little sun- 
 beam or something, running all over his face. 
 
 "Father says we shan't probably see him 
 again. They don't have any receptions now 
 at the White House, because they are in 
 mourning. 
 
 "We went to a Quaker meeting this after- 
 noon, but there isn't any time to tell about it." 
 
JOY'S JOURNAL. 
 
 " Monday, June 23. 
 
 "Oh dear me! We've seen so much to- 
 day I can't remember half of it. I shall 
 write what I can, and Gypsy may write the 
 rest. 
 
 " In the first place, we went to the Capitol. 
 It's built of white marble, and it's very large. 
 There are quantities of long steps on different 
 sides of it, and so many doors, and passages, 
 and rooms, and pillars. I never could find 
 my way out, in the world, alone. I wonder 
 the Senators don't get lost sometimes. 
 
 "About the first place you come into is c 
 round room, called the rotunda. Uncle says 
 rotunda means round. There are some pic- 
 tures there. One of them is Washington 
 crossing the Delaware, with great cakes of ice 
 beating up against the boat. One of the men 
 has a flag in his hand. Gypsy and I liked it 
 ever so much. 
 
 "Oh! — the dome of the Capitol isn't quite 
 
finished. There is scaffolding up there, and 
 it doesn't look very pretty. 
 
 "Well, then we went up-stairs, and I never 
 saw such handsome stairs! They are marble, 
 and so wide! and the banisters are the most 
 elegant variegated marble, — a sort of dark 
 brown, and they are so broad ! Why, I should 
 think they were a foot and a half broad, but 
 then I don't know exactly how much a foot is. 
 
 ' ' We went into two rooms that Gypsy and I 
 both liked best of anything. One is called 
 the Marble Room, and the other the Fresco 
 Room. The Marble Room is all made of 
 marble, — walls, floor, window-sills, every- 
 thing but the furniture. The marble is of dif- 
 ferent colors and patterns, and just as beautiful ! 
 The furniture is covered with drab damask. 
 
 "The Fresco Room is all made of pictures. 
 Frescoes are pictures painted on the ceilings, 
 Uncle says. He says Michael Angelo, the 
 great sculptor and artist, used to paint a great 
 many, and that they are very beautiful. He 
 
says he had to lie flat on scaffoldings while 
 h~ was painting the domes of great churches, 
 and that, by looking up so, in that position, 
 he n^rt his eyes very much. This room I 
 started to tell about is real pretty. I've al- 
 most forgotten what the furniture is covered 
 with. Seems to me it is yellow damask, or 
 else it's the Marble Room that's yellow, and 
 this is drab, — or else— I declare ! We've seen 
 so much to-day, I've got everything mixed up! 
 
 "Uncle has just been correcting our jour- 
 nals, and he says it isn't proper to say ' I've 
 got,' but I ought to say ' I have.' 
 
 "Oh, I forgot to say that the Senators' 
 w r ives and daughters who are boarding here 
 are very stylish people. When I grow up I 
 mean to marry a Senator, and come to Wash- 
 ington, and give great parties. 
 
 "I don't see why I don't hear from father. 
 You know it's nearly three weeks now since I 
 had a letter. I thought I should have one 
 last week, just as much as could be." 
 
GYPSY'S JOURNAL. 
 
 " Eight o'clock, Monday Night. 
 
 "Joy ha? told ever so much about the Cap- 
 itol, and I don't want to tell it all over again. 
 If I forget it, I can look at her journal, you 
 know. 
 
 " But she didn't tell about Congress. Well, 
 you see if we'd come a little later we shouldn't 
 have seen them at all; and if it didn't happen 
 to be a long session we shouldn't see them so 
 late in the season. But then we did. I'm very 
 glad, only I thought it was rather stupid. 
 
 " I liked the halls, anyway. They're splen- 
 did, only there's a great deal of yellow about 
 them; and then there are some places for pic- 
 tures, and the pictures aren't put up yet. 
 
 " There's a gallery runs round, where visitors 
 sit. The Senators and Representatives are 
 down on the floor. We went into the Senate 
 first. They sat in seats that curved round, and 
 the President of the Senate — that's Vice-Presi- 
 dent Hamlin — he sits in a sort of little pulpit, 
 
and looks after things. If anybody wants to 
 speak, they have to ask him, and he says, ' The 
 Senator from so-and-so has the floor.' Then 
 when they get into a fight, he has to settle it. 
 Isn't it funny in such great grown-up men to 
 quarrel? But they do, like everything. There 
 was one man got real mad at Mr. Sumner to-day. 
 
 " I didn't care about what they were talking 
 about, but it was fun to look down and see all 
 the desks and papers, and some of them were 
 just as sleepy as could be. Then they kept 
 whispering to each other while a man was 
 speaking, and sometimes they talked right out 
 loud. If I should do that at school, I guess 
 Miss Cardrew would give it to me. But what 
 I thought was queerest of all, they all talked 
 right at the Vice-President, and kept saying, 
 'Mr. President,' and 'Sir,' just as if there 
 weren't anybody else in the room. 
 
 "Some of the Senators are handsome, and a 
 good many more aren't. Joy stood up for Mr. 
 
 Sumner because he came from Massachusetts. 
 
 256 
 
He is a nice-looking man, and I had to say so. 
 He has a high forehead, and he looks exactly 
 like a gentleman. Besides, father says he has 
 done a noble work for the country and the 
 slaves, and the rest of New England ought to 
 be just as proud of him as Massachusetts. 
 
 "We went into the House of Representa- 
 tives, too, and it was a great deal noisier there 
 than it was in the Senate, there were so many 
 more of them. I saw one man eating peanuts. 
 Most all of them looked hungry. The man 
 that sits up behind the desk and takes care of 
 the House, is called the Speaker. I think it's 
 real funny, because he never makes a speech. 
 As we came out of the Capitol, father turned 
 round and looked back and said: 'Just think! 
 All the laws that govern this great country come 
 out from there.' He said some more about it, 
 too, but there was the funniest little negro bov 
 peeking through the fence, and I didn't hear. 
 
 " We went to the White House next. Father 
 
 says it's something like a palace, only some 
 257 
 
palaces are handsomer. It's white marble like 
 the Capitol. We went up the steps, and a man 
 let us right in. We saw two rooms. One is 
 called the Red Room and one the Green Room. 
 
 The Red Room is furnished in red damask 
 and the Green is all green. They were very 
 handsome, only all the furniture was ranged 
 along the walls, and that made it seem so big 
 and empty. Father says that's because these 
 rooms are used for receptions, and there is 
 such a crowd. 
 
 "There is a Blue Room, too, that visitors 
 are sometimes let into. Father asked the 
 doorkeeper ; but he said, ' The family were at 
 breakfast in it.' That was eleven o'clock! I 
 guess I'd like to be a President's daughter, and 
 not have to get up. We didn't see anything 
 more of President Lincoln. 
 
 " We've been going all day, and we've 
 been to the Patent Office and the Smith- 
 sonian Institute, but I'm too tired to say 
 anything about them." 
 
GYPSY'S JOURNAL. 
 
 " Tuesday. 
 
 "We've been over to Alexandria — that's 
 across the Potomac River — in the funniest 
 little steamboat you ever saw. When you 
 went in or came out of the cabin, you had 
 to crawl under a stove-pipe. It wasn't 
 high enough to walk straight. I don't like 
 Alexandria. It's all mud and secessionists, 
 People looked cross, and Joy was afraid 
 they'd shoot us. We saw the house where 
 Col. Ellsworth was shot at the beginning 
 of the war. The man was very polite, and 
 showed us round. The plastering around 
 the place where he fell, and all the stairs, 
 had been cut away by people as relics. 
 We saw the church where Gen. Washington 
 used to go, too." 
 
 JOY'S JOURNAL 
 
 "Wednesday Night. 
 
 "We are just home from Mount Vernon, 
 and we've had a splendid time. We went 
 
in a steamboat; it's some way from Wash- 
 ington. You can go by land, if you want 
 to. It was real pleasant. Gen. Washington's 
 house was there, — a queer, low old place, 
 
 and we went all over it. There was a nice 
 
 garden, and beautiful grounds, with woods 
 
 clear down to the water. He is buried on 
 260 
 
the place under a marble tomb, with a sort 
 of brick shed all around it. There is nothing 
 on the tomb but the word Washington. 
 His wife is buried by him, and it says on 
 hers, Martha, Consort of Washington. All 
 the gentlemen took off their hats while we 
 stood there. To-morrow we are going to 
 Manassas, if there is a boat. Uncle is going 
 to see. I am having a splendid time. 
 Won't it be nice telling father all about it 
 when he comes home?" 
 
 Joy laid down her pen suddenly. She 
 heard a strange noise in her uncle's room 
 where he and Gypsy were sitting. It was 
 a sort of cry, — a low, smothered cry, as 
 of some one in grief or pain. She shut 
 up her portfolio and hurried in. Mr. Breyn- 
 ton held a paper in his hand. Gypsy was 
 looking over his shoulder, and her face was 
 very pale. 
 
 "What is it? What's the matter?" 
 
 Nobody answereu. 
 
Mr. Breynton turned away his face. Gypsy 
 broke out crying. 
 
 "Why, what is the matter?" said Joy, 
 looking alarmed. 
 
 "Joy, my poor child — " began her uncle. 
 But Gypsy sprang forward suddenly, and 
 threw her arms around Joy's neck. 
 
 "Oh, Joy, Joy, — your father!" 
 
 "Let me see that paper!" Joy caught it 
 before they could stop her, opened it, read 
 it, — dropped it slowly. It was a telegram 
 from Yorkbury : — 
 
 ' ' Boston papers say Joy's father died in 
 France two weeks ago." 
 
\\\w 
 
 ■©iJEDftY 
 
 •OlGfFpj 
 
 THEY were all together in the par- 
 >U\_ lor at Yorkbury — Joy very still, 
 
 with her head in her auntie's lap. It was 
 two weeks now since that night when she 
 sat writing in her journal at Washington, 
 and planning so happily for the trip to Manassas 
 that had never been taken. 
 
 They had been able to learn little about 
 her father's death as yet. A Paris paper re- 
 ported, and Boston papers copied, the state 
 ment that an American of his name, stopping 
 263 
 
at an obscure French town, was missing for 
 two days, and found on the third, murdered, 
 robbed, horribly disfigured. Mr. George 
 Breynton had been traveling alone in the 
 interior of the country, and had written home 
 that he should be in this town — St. Pierre — 
 at precisely the time given as the date of 
 the American's death. So his long silence 
 was awfully explained to Joy. The fact 
 that the branch of his firm with which he 
 had frequent business correspondence, had 
 not received the least intelligence of him 
 for several weeks, left no doubt of the mourn- 
 ful truth. Something had gone wrong in 
 the shipping of certain goods, which had re- 
 quired his immediate presence; they had 
 therefore written and telegraphed to him 
 repeatedly, but there had been no reply- 
 Day by day the ominous silence had shaded 
 into alarm, had deepened into suspense, had 
 grown into certainty. 
 
 Mr. Breynton had fought against conviction 
 
as long as he could, had clung to all possi- 
 bilities and impossibilities of doubt, but even 
 he had given up all hope. 
 
 Dead — dead, without a sign; without one 
 last word to the child waiting for him across 
 the seas; without one last kiss or blessing; 
 dead by ruffian hands, lying now in an un- 
 known, lonely grave. It seemed to Joy as 
 if her heart must break. She tried to fly 
 from the horrible, haunting thought, to for- 
 get it in her dreams, to drown it in her 
 books and play. But she could not leave it; 
 it would not leave her. It must be taken 
 down into her heart and kept there; she and 
 it must be always alone together; no one 
 could come between them ; no one could help 
 her. 
 
 And so there was nothing to do but take 
 that dreary journey home from Washington, 
 come quietly back to Yorkbury, come back 
 without father or mother, into the home that 
 must be hers now, the only one left her in 
 
all the wide world; nothing to do but to live 
 on, and never to see him any more, never to 
 kiss him, never to creep up into his arms, or 
 hear his brave, merry voice calling, "Joyce, 
 Joyce," as it used to call about the old home. 
 No ct;e called her Joyce but her father. No 
 one should ever call her so again. 
 
 Tom called her so one day, never thin^ 
 ing. 
 
 " I don't want to hear that — not that name," 
 said Joy, flushing suddenly; then paling and 
 turning away. 
 
 She was very still now. Since the first few 
 days she seldom cried; or if she did, it was 
 when she was away alone in the dark, with 
 no one to see her. She had grown strangely 
 silent, strangely gentle and thoughtful for 
 Joy. Sorrow was doing for her what it 
 does for so many older and better; and in 
 her frightened, childish way, Joy was suffer- 
 ing all that she could suffer. 
 
 Perhaps only Gypsy knew just how much 
 
it was. The two girls had been drawn very 
 near to each other these past few weeks. 
 It seemed to Gypsy as if the grief were 
 almost her own, she felt so sorry for Joy; 
 she had grown very gentle to her, very 
 patient with her, very thoughtful for her 
 comfort. They were little ways in which 
 she could show this, but these little ways 
 are better than any words. When she left 
 her own merry play with the girls to hunt 
 up Joy sitting somewhere alone and miser- 
 able, and coax her out into the sunlight, or 
 sit beside her and tell funny stories till the 
 smiles came wandering back against their will 
 to Joy's pale face; when she slid her straw- 
 berry tarts into Joy's desk at recess, or 
 stole up-stairs after her with a handful of 
 peppermints bought with her own little 
 weekly allowance, or threw her arms around 
 her so each night with a single, silent kiss. 
 or came up sometimes in the dark and cried 
 with her, without saying a word, Joy was not 
 267 
 
unmindful nor ungrateful. She noticed it all, 
 everything; out of her grief she thanked her 
 with all her heart, and treasured up in her 
 memory to love for all her life the Gypsy 
 of these sad days. 
 
 They were in the parlor together on this 
 Sunday night, as I said, — all except Mr. 
 Breynton, who had been for several days in 
 Boston, settling his brother's affairs, and 
 making arrangements to sell the house for 
 joy; it was her house now, that handsome 
 place in Beacon Street, and that seemed so 
 strange, — strange to Joy most of all. 
 
 They were grouped around the room in 
 the fading western light, Gypsy and Tom to- 
 gether by the window, Winnie perched de- 
 murely on the piano-stool, and Joy on the 
 cricket at Mrs. Breynton's feet. The faint 
 light was touching her face, and her mourn- 
 ful dress with its heavy crape trimmings, — 
 there were no white chenille and silver 
 brooches now; Joy had laid these things 
 268 
 
aside of her own wish. It is a very small 
 matter, to be sure, this mourning; but in 
 Joy's case it mirrored her real grief very 
 completely. The something which she had 
 not felt when her mother died, she felt now, 
 to the full. She had a sort of notion. — an 
 ignorant, childish notion, but very real to 
 her, — that it was wicked to wear bows and 
 hair-ribbons now. 
 
 She had been sitting so for some time, 
 with her head in her aunt's lap, quite silent. 
 her eyes looking off through the window. 
 
 "Why not have a little singing?" said 
 Mrs. Breynton, in her pleasant, hushed 
 voice; — it was always a little different 
 somehow, Sunday nights; a little more quiet. 
 
 Gyps)'' went to the piano, and usurped 
 Winnie's throne on the stool, much to that 
 young gentleman's disgust. 
 
 "What shall it be, mother?" 
 
 '' Joy's hymn, dear." 
 
 Gypsy began, without further explanation, 
 269 
 
to play a low, sweet prelude, 
 and then they sang through 
 the hymn that Joy had 
 learned and loved in these 
 few desolate weeks: 
 
 " There is an eye that never sleeps 
 Beneath the wing of night ; 
 
 There is an ear that never shuts 
 When sink the beams of light. 
 
 •' There is an arm that never tires 
 When human strength gives way ; 
 
 There is a love that never fails 
 When earthly loves decay." 
 
 Joy tried to sing, but just there she broke 
 down. Gypsy's voice faltered a little, and 
 Mrs. Breynton sang very softly to the end. 
 
 After that they were all still; Joy had 
 hidden her face. Tom began to hum over 
 the tune uneasily, in his deep bass. A sud- 
 den sob broke into it. 
 
 " This is what makes it all so different." 
 ' "What, dear?" 
 
"The singing, and the prayers, and the 
 Sunday nights; it's been making me think 
 about being a good girl, ever since I've been 
 here. We never had any at home. Father — " 
 
 But she did not finish. She rose and went 
 over to the western window, away from the 
 rest, where no one could see her face. 
 
 The light was dimming fast; it was nearly 
 dark now, and the crickets were chirping in 
 the distant meadows. 
 
 Tom coughed, and came very near trying to 
 whistle. Gypsy screwed the piano-stool round 
 with a sudden motion, and went over to where 
 Joy stood. 
 
 Tom and his mother began to talk in a low 
 voice, and the two girls were as if alone. 
 
 The first thing Gypsy did, was to put her 
 arms round Joy's neck and kiss her. Joy hid 
 her face on her shoulder and cried softly. 
 Then Gypsy choked a little, and for a while 
 they cried together. 
 
 " You see I am so sorry," said Gypsy. 
 
" I know it, — I know it. Oh, Gypsy, if I 
 could see him just one minute ! " 
 
 Gypsy only gave her a little hug in answer. 
 Then presently, as the best thing she could 
 think of to say: 
 
 "We'll go strawberrymg to-morrow, and 
 I'll save you the very best place. Besides, 
 I've got a tart up-stairs I've been saving for 
 you, and you can eat it when we go up to bed. 
 I think things taste real nice in bed. Don't 
 you ? " 
 
 " Look here, Gypsy, do you know I love 
 you ever so much?" 
 
 "You do! Well, isn't that funny? I was 
 just thinking how much I loved you. Be- 
 sides, I'm real glad you're going to live here 
 always." 
 
 "Why, I thought you'd be sorry." 
 
 "I should have once," said Gypsy honestly. 
 " But that's because I was ugly. I don't think 
 I could get along without you possibly — no, 
 not anyway in the world. Just think how 
 
long we've slept together, and what ' gales ' 
 we do get into when our lamp goes out and 
 we can't find the matches! You see I never 
 had anybody to get into gales with before." 
 
 Somebody rang the door-bell just then, and 
 the conversation was broken up. 
 
 "Joy, have you a mind to go?" asked Mrs. 
 Breynton. " Patty is out, this evening." 
 
 "Why! whoever it is, they've come right 
 in," said Joy, opening the door. 
 
 A man was there in the entry; — a man with 
 heavy whiskers and a valise. 
 
 The rest of them sitting back there in the 
 dark waited, wondering a little who it could 
 be coming in Sunday night. And this is what 
 they heard : 
 
 "Joyce, little Joyce! — why, don't be fright- 
 ened, child; it's nobody but father." 
 
THEY were alone to- 
 gether in the quiet room — Peace Maythorne 
 and Joy. The thick yellow sunlight fell in, 
 touching the old places, — the wall where 
 Gypsy's blue and golden text was hanging, — a 
 little patch of the faded carpet, the bed, and 
 the folded hands upon it, and the peaceful 
 face. 
 
 Joy had crept up somewhat timidly into 
 Gypsy's place close by the pillow. She was 
 
talking, half sadly, half gladly, as if she hardly 
 knew whether to laugh or cry. 
 
 "You see, we're going right off in this noon 
 train, and I thought I must come over and say 
 good-bye." 
 
 " I'm real sorry to have you go — real." 
 
 "Are you?" said Joy, looking pleased. 
 "Well, I didn't suppose you'd care. I do 
 believe you care for everybody, Peace." 
 
 "I try to." said Peace, smiling. " Yo-a go 
 in rather a hurry, don't you Joy?" 
 
 " Yes. It's just a week since father came. 
 He wants to stay a while longer, dreadfully, 
 but he says his business at home can't be put 
 off, and of course I'm going with him. Do 
 you know, Peace, I can't bear to have him out 
 of the room five minutes, I'm so silly. It 
 seems all the time as if I were dreaming a 
 real beautiful dream, and when I woke up, 
 the awful days would come back, and he'd be 
 dead again. I keep wanting to kiss him and 
 feel of him all the time." 
 
•■You poor child!" said Peace, her eyes 
 dimming a little, "how strange it all has 
 been. How good He's been to you — God." 
 
 "I know it. I know He has, Peace. 
 Wasn't it queer how it all came about? Gypsy 
 says nobody but God could have managed it 
 so, and Auntie says He must have had some 
 very good reason. 
 
 "You see, father was sick all that time in a 
 little out-of-the-way French town with not a 
 single soul he knew, and nobody to talk Eng- 
 lish, and so sick he couldn't write a word— out 
 of his head, he says, all the time. That's why 
 I didn't hear, nor the firm. Then wasn't it so 
 strange about that man who was murdered at 
 St. Pierre' — the very same name — George 
 Breynton, only it was George W. instead of 
 George M. ; but that they didn't find out till 
 afterwards. Poor man ! I wonder if he has 
 anybody crying for him over here. Then you 
 know, just as soon as ever father got well 
 enough to travel, he started straight home. 
 275 
 
He said he'd had enough of Europe, and if he 
 ever lived to get home, he wouldn't go another 
 . time without somebody with him. It wasn't 
 ' so very pleasant, he said, to come so near 
 1 dying with nobody round that you knew, and 
 not to hear a word of your own language. 
 Then, you know, he got into Boston Saturday, 
 and he hurried straight up here ; but the train 
 only went as far as Rutland, and stopped at 
 midnight. Then, you see, he was so crazy to 
 see me and let me know he wasn't dead, he 
 couldn't possibly wait; so he hired a carriage 
 and drove all the way over Sunday. And oh, 
 Peace, when I saw him out there in the en- 
 try!" 
 
 " I guess you said your prayers that night," 
 ! said Peace, smiling. 
 
 "I rather guess I did! And Peace, that 
 makes me think " — Joy grew suddenly very 
 grave; there was an earnest, thoughtful look 
 in her eyes that Joy's eyes did not have when 
 she first came to Yorkbury; a look that they 
 
had been slowly learning all this year; that 
 they had been very quickly learning these past 
 few weeks — "When I get home it's going to 
 be hard — a good many things are going to be 
 hard." 
 
 "Yes, I see." said Peace, musingly. Peace 
 always seemed to see just what other people 
 were living and hoping and fearing, without 
 any words from them to explain it. 
 
 " It's all so different from what it is here. I 
 don't w T ant to forget what you've told me and 
 Auntie's told me. Almost everybody I know 
 at home doesn't care for what you do up here 
 in Yorkbury. I used to think about dancing- 
 school, and birthday parties, and rigging up. 
 and summer fashions, and how many diamonds 
 I'd have when I was married, and all that, the 
 whole of the time, Peace — the whole of it; 
 then I got mad when my dresses didn't fit, 
 and I used to strike Therese and Kate, if you'll 
 believe it — when I was real angry that was. 
 Now, up here, somehow I'm ashamed when I 
 2 7 s 
 
miss at school; then sometimes I help Auntie 
 a little, and sometimes I do try not to be cross. 
 Now, you see, I'm going back, and father he 
 thinks the world of me, and let's me do every- 
 thing I want to, and I'm afraid" — Joys topped, 
 puzzled to express herself — "I'm afraid I 
 shall do everything I want to." 
 
 Peace smiled, and seemed to be thinking. 
 
 "Then, you see, I shall grow up a cross, 
 old selfish woman," said Joy dolefully; "Auntie 
 says people grow selfish that have every- 
 thing their own way. You see, up here 
 there's been Gypsy, and she wanted things 
 just as much as I, so there's been two 
 ways, and that's the thing of it." 
 
 " I don't think you need to grow up self- 
 ish," said Peace, slowly; "no, I am sure you 
 needn't." 
 
 "Well, I wish you'd tell me how." 
 
 "Ask Him not to let you," said Peace 
 softly. 
 
 Joy colored. 
 
"I know it; I've thought of that. But 
 there's another trouble. You see, father — 
 well, he doesn't care about those things. 
 He never has prayers nor anything, and he 
 used to bring me novels to read Sundays. 
 I read them then. I've got all out of the 
 way of it up here. I don't think I should 
 want to, now." 
 
 "Joy," said Peace after a silence. "I 
 think — -I guess, you must help your father 
 a little. If he sees you doing right, perhaps, 
 — he loves you so very much, — perhaps 
 by-and-by he will feel differently." 
 
 Joy made no answer. Her eyes looked 
 off dreamily through the window; her 
 thoughts wandered away from Peace and 
 the quiet room — away into her future, 
 which the young girl seemed to see just 
 then, with grave, prophetic glance; a future 
 of difficulty, struggle, temptation; of old 
 habits and old teachings to be battled with; 
 of new ones to be formed; of much to learn 
 280 
 
and unlearn, and try, and try again ; but per- 
 haps — she still seemed to see with the 
 young girl's earnest eyes that for the mo- 
 ment had quite outgrown the child — a 
 future faithfully lived and well; not frittered 
 away in beautiful playing only, but filled up 
 with something; more than that, a future 
 which should be a long thank-offering to 
 God for this great mercy He had shown 
 her, this great blessing He had given her 
 back from the grave; a future in which, 
 perhaps, they two who were so dear to 
 each other, should seek Him together — ■ 
 a future that he could bless to them both. 
 
 Peace quite understood the look with which 
 she turned at last, half sobbing, to kiss hef 
 good-bye. 
 
 "I must go, — it is very late. Thank vou, 
 Peace. Thank you as long as I live." 
 
 She looked back in closing the door, to 
 see the quiet face that lay so patiently on 
 the pillow, to see the stillness of the 
 folded hands, to see the last, rare smile. 
 
She wondered, half guessing the truth, if 
 she should ever see it again. She never did. 
 
 They were all wondering what had be- 
 come of her, when she came into the house. 
 
 "We start in half an hour, Joyce, my 
 dear," said her father, catching her up in 
 his arms for a kiss; — he almost always 
 kissed her now when she had been fifteen 
 minutes out of his sight, — "We start in half 
 an hour, and you won't have any more than 
 time to eat your lunch." 
 
 Mrs. Breynton had spread one of her very 
 "~"ry best lunches on the dining-room table, 
 and Joy's chair was ready and waiting for 
 her, and everybody stood around, in that 
 way people will stand, when a guest is go- 
 ing away, not knowing exactly what to do 
 or what to say, but looking very sober. 
 And very sober they felt; they had all 
 learned to love Joy in this year she had spent 
 among them, and it Was dreary enough to 
 see her trunks packed and strapped in the 
 
entry, and her closet shelves upstairs empty, 
 and all little traces of her about the house 
 vanishing fast. 
 
 " Come along," said Gypsy in a savage 
 undertone, "Come and eat, and let the rest 
 stay out here. I've hardly set eyes on you 
 all the morning. I must have you all my- 
 self now." 
 
 "Oh hum!" said Joy, attempting a currant 
 tart, and throwing it down with one little 
 semi-circular bite in it. " So I'm really off, 
 and this is the very last time I shall sit at 
 this table." 
 
 " Hush up, if you please!" observed Gypsy, 
 Winking hard, "just eat your tart." 
 
 Joy cut off a delicate mouthful of the cold 
 tongue, and then began to look around the 
 room. 
 
 "The last time I shall see Winnie's blocks, 
 and that little patch of sunshine on the ma- 
 chine, and the big Bible on the book-case! 
 — Oh, how I shall think about them all 
 2S3 
 
nights, when I'm sitting down by the grate 
 at home." 
 
 " Stop talking about your last times! It's 
 bad enough to have you go anyway. I 
 don't know what I shall do without you." 
 
 " I don't know what I shall do without 
 you, I'm sure," said Joy, shaking her head 
 mournfully, "but then, you know, we're going 
 to write to each other twice every single 
 week." 
 
 "I know it, — every week as long as we 
 live, remember." 
 
 " Oh, I shan't forget. I'm going to make 
 father buy me some pink paper and en- 
 velopes with Love stamped up in the corners, 
 on purpose." 
 
 " Anyway, it's a great deal worse for me," 
 said Gypsy, forlornly. "You're going to 
 Boston, and to open the house again and all, 
 and have ever so much to think about. I'm 
 just going on and on, and you won't be up- 
 stairs when I go to bed, and your things 
 284 
 
won't ever be hanging out on the nails in 
 the entry, and I'll have to go to school alone, 
 and — O dear me!" 
 
 "Yes, I suppose you do have the worst of 
 it," said Joy, feeling a great spasm of mag- 
 nanimity in bringing herself to say this; "but 
 it's pretty bad for me, and I don't believe 
 you can feel worse than I do. Isn't it funny 
 in us to love each other so much?" 
 
 "Real," said Gypsy, trying to laugh, with 
 two bright tears rolling down her cheeks. 
 Both the girls were thinking just then of joy's 
 coming to Yorkbury. How strange that it 
 should have been so hard for Gypsy; that it 
 had cost her a sacrifice to welcome her cousin ; 
 how strange that they could ever have quar- 
 reled so; how strange all those ugly, dark 
 memories of the first few months they spent 
 together — the jealousy, the selfishness, the dis,- 
 like of each other, the constant fretting and 
 jarring, the longing for the time that should 
 separate them. And now it had come, and 
 28s 
 
here they sat looking at each other and cry- 
 ing — quite sure their hearts were broken ! 
 
 The two tears rolled down into Gypsy's 
 smile, and she swallowed them before she 
 spoke: 
 
 "I do believe it's all owing to that verse!" 
 
 "What verse ? " 
 
 "Why, Peace Maythorne's. I suppose she 
 and mother would say we'd tried somehow or 
 other to prefer one another in honor, you 
 know, and that's the thing of it. Because you 
 see I know if I'd always had everything my 
 own way, I shouldn't have liked you a bit, 
 and I'd have been real glad when you went 
 off." 
 
 "Joyce, Joyce!" called her father from the 
 entry, " Here's the coach. It's time to be 
 getting ready to cry and kiss all around." 
 
 " Oh — hum ! " said Gypsy. 
 
 "I know it," said Joy, not very clear as to 
 what she was talking about. " Where's my 
 bag ? Oh, yes. And my parasol ? Oh there's 
 
Winnie riding horseback on it. Well, Gypsy, 
 go — od — " 
 
 " Bye," finished Gypsy, with a great sob. 
 And oh, such a hugging and kissing as there 
 was then! 
 
 Then Joy was caught in her Auntie's 
 arms, and Tom's and Winnie's all at once, 
 it seemed to her, for the coachman was 
 in a very great hurry, and by the time she 
 was in the coach seated by her father, she 
 found she had quite spoiled her new kid 
 gloves, rubbing her eyes. 
 
 "Good-bye," called Gypsy, waving one of 
 Winnie's old jackets, under the impression 
 that it was a handkerchief. 
 
 "Twice every week!" 
 
 "Yes — sure: on pink paper, remember." 
 
 "Yes, and envelopes. Good-bye. Good- 
 bye ! " 
 
 So the last nodding and smiling was over, 
 and the coach rattled away, and the house 
 with the figures on the steps grew dim and 
 287 
 
faded from sight, 
 and the train 
 whirled Joy on 
 over the moun- 
 tains — away into 
 that future of 
 which she sat 
 thinking - in Peace 
 Maythorne's room, 
 of which she sat 
 thinking now, 
 with earnest eyes, 
 looking off 
 through the car- 
 window, with 
 many brave young hopes, and little fear. 
 
 "You'd just better come into the dining- 
 room," said Winnie to Gypsy, who was stand- 
 ing out in the yard, remarkably interested 
 in the lilac-bush, and under the very 
 curious impression that people thought she 
 wasn't crying. "I think it's real nice Joy's 
 
 2dS 
 
 MuftflitoiijGbuA—fi* 
 
gone, 'cause she didn't eat up her luucheon. 
 There's a piece of pounded cake with sugar 
 on top. There were were tarts with squince- 
 jelly in 'em too, but the} 7 — well, they ain't 
 there now, some ways or nuther." 
 
 281) 
 
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