Gypsy's Cousin Joy

"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. Darley might have made a small fortune out of; but the pen of a Cicero could not attempt 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 forgot. I want a clean apron. I don't want any milk to-morrer."

This was in the early summer. The holidays had come and gone, and the winter and the spring. Coasting, skating, and snowballing had given place to driving hoop, picking flowers, boating, and dignified promenades 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, selfish thoughts, unkind acts, angry words; but many penitent hours as well, some confessions, 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 between 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 Rattlesnake was the beginning of it. When Winnie 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."

"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-anxiety—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 horseback 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, the thermometer's 80° already."

Nevertheless, Joy went back and got the 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 Francis, 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 uncommon 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, impatiently; "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 lady-like 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 condescendingly 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, between 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 forefeet firmly on the ground, refused to stir an inch. Gypsy whirled around and stood triumphant under the fir-tree, her eyes snapping 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 bewildered; "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 biscuit 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 himself 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 under 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 foxberry blossoms, lot's of 'em, real pretty; they looked just as if they were snipped out of pearls with a pair of sharp scissors."

"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," answered 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 redcup 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!" exclaimed 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. Therése and I, we planned it all out one night—Therése 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 seldom 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 blossoms were folding their cups for the night, and the shadows in the thickets were growing gray.

"Gypsy!" said Joy, suddenly, "we're certainly 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 under 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, 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 summit 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 together. 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."

She expected Joy to burst forth in a torrent 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 frightened 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 distant 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 desolate 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 them 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 somewhere 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 lace 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 impassably. 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 alternative.

"We must stay here all night," said Gypsy, slowly. She had scarcely finished her sentence 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 burning 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, bearing 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 flaming branch fell hissing into a little pool at the bottom of the gully. 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 whistling, 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 what 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 mountains 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, waiting 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?"

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 underbrush 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 resolve—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 followed 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 were open.

The cruel fire hissed and sputtered, and shot 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!"

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 summer 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 Boston for a new veil. Mother's made me a whole new dress to wear in the cars, and I've got a beautiful 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 Washington. Won't I sit at the windows and see 'em go by!"

Thursday, Friday, Saturday passed; Sunday began and ended in a rain-storm; Monday 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."

Very 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 dépôt; the ticket-master, who had stood shut up there just so behind the little window 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 singularly 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 nobody 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 sunlight 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 distingué style. It chanced that just after they left Fitchburg, she espied the stone pier of an unfinished bridge, surmounted 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 phenomenon.

"Look out, Gypsy," said her father uneasily. "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 window, 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 Joy.

"Gypsy, my dear!" said her father.

"Well, anyway," said Gypsy, drawing in her head in the utmost astonishment, "I can wear a handkerchief."

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 her 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 Philadelphia. You don't know what a lovely bonnet I saw up Fifth Avenue to-day. It was 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 journal, 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 laughing.

"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 a 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 policemen 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 myself in a rosette, and it doesn't look so badly after all. But oh, my pretty 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 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 splendid 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! I'm 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 Markœ 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 Quakers 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."