Gypsy's Cousin Joy

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. Breynton 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 entertaining in her account of her journey. She thought Vermont looked cold and stupid, however, 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 thousands 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 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 adornments.

"Oh, is this it?"

Gypsy stopped short, the hot color rushing 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 because 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 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 wonderful 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 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 dreadfully 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 collars 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 Gypsy's face for the second time, but now it was a somewhat 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.

"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 unanswerable, 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 anybody to show her where she was to blame.

Joy went to sleep without any thoughts, and therein lay just the difference.

"'Tis, too. I heard the clock strike five 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," said Joy, with another jump.

"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!"

"Just 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 minute she wished she had let her have the upper drawer.

"Come, dear, do, just a little, to please father."

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 standing 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 taking 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 Yorkbury 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."

"I shall tan my hands," said Joy, reluctantly, as they went out. "Besides, I don't know what a jiff is."

"A jiff is—why, it's short for jiffy, I suppose."

"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 sometimes 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 clothesline.

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 beautiful 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 laughter, 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 perfectly 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 of an autumn afternoon. A creamy haze softened the sharp outline of the mountains, and lay cloudlike on the fields. The sunlight fell through it like sifted gold, the sky hung motionless and blue—that glowless, 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, tearing 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 embroidery.

"A chestnutting, up at Mr. Jonathan 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 help feeling, with such a sunlight as that and such distant glories of the maple-trees, and such shadows melting on the mountains!

"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 cunning," 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. Moreover, 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 Winnie. 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 staying home. But Winnie had received quite too much encouragement; he had no thought of giving up his bargain now.

"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 Phœbe Hunt's lunch-basket, and had to stay after school for it, and how it was confidently reported 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. Guernsey's father, but George's; he had now, true's you live.

Now, to Joy, of course, none 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 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, turning 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 repeated this pleasing little incident six consecutive 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, clearing 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 clustered 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, and the silent sky.

It was a sight to make younger and older than these four girls stand still with deepening eyes. For about a half minute nobody spoke, and I venture to say the four different kinds of thoughts they had just then would make a pretty bit of a poem.

Whatever they were, a fearfully unromantic and utterly indescribable howl from Winnie 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 influenced 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. Therefore 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 anythin' 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 chestnots, and a gun and a pistol, and I won't give you 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 unaccustomed 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 off 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.

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 mote. 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 like 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 terribly 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 suppose."

"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 whatever, were a pair of feet—Winnie's feet, unmistakably, because of their copper toes and tagless shoestrings—and kicking frantically 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 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, dripping, 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 collect 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 Winnie started off forlornly enough.

About five o'clock Gypsy walked slowly up 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 their 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."

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 abundance 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, delighted 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 surrounding 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 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, thinking, 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 flustered beout knowin' the way neow mos' likely."

"Oh, what a splendid, good man you are!" said Gypsy, jumping up and down, and clapping 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 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. Gypsy 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 mountain. It seemed to Gypsy like a great, glaring eye, that was singling her out and following 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. Besides, the cat eat it up las' week, feathers 'n' 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, and we're trying to find them."

"Be you, now, really!" said the small boy, apparently struck with sudden and overwhelming 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 sobbing, 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. Evidently, 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 uncomfortable 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 Winnie 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 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, uneasily. "It was perfectly fair Joy should take Winnie, and of course I wasn't bound to give up my nutting 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 carelessness. 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 which you talked over. You might, might you not, have by a little effort made her soon feel at 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 to 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 afternoon 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 to let her start off alone, over a strange road, with the care of a crying——"

"And muddy," put in Gypsy, with twinkling eyes, "from head to foot, black as a shoe."

"And muddy child?" finished Mrs. Breynton, smiling in spite of herself.

"But Joy wanted to take him, and I told her so. It was her own bargain."