Gypsy Breynton Part 20

"She's up-stairs, sir, dressing," said the servant, who had opened the door.

"Tell her Miss Gypsy has come; sit down, child, and make yourself at home."

Gypsy sat down, and Mr. Breynton, not satisfied with sending a message to his wife, went to the foot of the stairs, and called,--

"Miranda!--Joy!"

A voice from somewhere above answered, a little sharply, that she was coming as fast as she could, and she told Joyce to go down long ago, but she hadn't stirred.

Gypsy heard every word, and she began to wonder if her aunt were very glad to see her, and what sort of a girl her cousin must be, if she didn't obey her mother unless she chose to. Just then Joy came down stairs, walking very slowly and properly, and came into the parlor with the manners of a young lady of eighteen. She might have been a pretty child, if she had been dressed more plainly and becomingly; but her face was pale and thin, and there was a fretful look about her mouth, that almost spoiled it.

Gypsy went up warmly, and kissed her. Joy had extended the tips of her fingers to shake hands, and she looked a little surprised, but kissed her politely, and asked if she were tired with the journey. Just then Mrs.

Breynton came in, with many apologies for her delay, met Gypsy kindly enough, and sent her up-stairs to take off her things.

"Who trimmed your hat?" asked Joy, suddenly.

"Miss Jones. She's our milliner."

"Oh," said Joy, "mine is a pheasant. n.o.body thinks of wearing velvet now--most everybody has a pheasant."

"I shouldn't like to wear just what everybody else did," Gypsy could not help saying. She hung the turban up in the closet, with a little uncomfortable feeling. It was a fine drab straw, trimmed and bound with velvet a shade darker. It was pretty, and she knew it; it just matched her casaque, and her mother had thought it all the more lady-like for its simplicity. Nevertheless, it was not going to be very pleasant to have her cousin Joy ashamed of her.

"Oh, oh, how short they wear dresses in Yorkbury!" remarked Joy, as Gypsy walked across the room. "Mine are nearly to the tops of my boots, now I'm thirteen years old."

"Are they?--where did I put my bag?" said Gypsy, carelessly. Joy looked a little piqued that she did not seem more impressed.

"There's dinner," she said, after a silence, in which she had been secretly inspecting and commenting upon every article of Gypsy's attire.

"Come, let's go down. Mother scolds if we're late."

"Scolds!" said Gypsy. "How funny! my mother never scolds."

"Doesn't she?" asked Joy, a little wonder in her eyes.

"It seems so queer to have dinner at six o'clock," said Gypsy, confidentially, as they went down stairs. "At home they are just sitting down to supper."

Joy laughed patronizingly.

"Oh, yes; I suppose you're used to country hours."

For the second time, Gypsy felt uncomfortable. She would very much have liked to ask her cousin what there was to be ashamed of in being used to country hours, when you lived in the country. But they had reached the dining-room door, and her aunt was calling out somewhat fretfully to Joy to hurry, so she said nothing.

After supper, her uncle said she looked very much like her father, hoped she would make herself at home, thought her a little taller than Joyce, and then was lost to view, for the evening, behind his newspaper. Her aunt inquired if she could play on the piano, was surprised to find she knew nothing more cla.s.sical than chants and Scotch airs; told Joy to let her hear that last air of Von Weber's; and then she took up a novel which was lying partially read upon the table. When Joy was through playing, she proposed a game of solitaire. Gypsy would much rather have examined the beautiful and costly ornaments with which the rooms were filled, but she was a little too polite and a little too proud to do so, unasked.

"What do you play most?" she asked, as they began to move the figures on the solitaire board.

"Oh," said Joy, "I practise three hours, and that takes all the time when I'm in school. In vacations, I don't know,--I like to walk in Commonwealth Avenue pretty well; then mother has a good deal of company, and I always come down."

"Only go to walk, and sit still in the parlor!" exclaimed Gypsy; "dear me!"

"Why, what do you do?"

"Me? Oh, I jump on the hay and run down hills and poke about in the swamp."

_"What?"_

"Push myself round on a raft in the orchard-swamp; it's real fun."

"Why, I never heard of such a thing!" said Joy, looking shocked.

"Well, it's splendid; you ought to come up to Yorkbury, and go out with me. Tom would make you a raft."

"What _do_ the people say?" said Joy, looking at her mother.

"Oh, there aren't any people there to see. If there were, they wouldn't say anything. I have just the nicest times. Winnie and I tipped over last spring,--clear over, splas.h.!.+"

"You will ruin your complexion," remarked her aunt, laying down her novel.

"I suppose you never wear a veil."

"A veil? Dear me, no! I can't bear the feeling of a veil. I wore one in the cars through, to keep the cinders off. Then, besides that, I row and coast, and,--oh, I forgot, walking on the fences; it's real fun if you don't tumble off."

_"Walking on the fences!"_

"Oh, yes. I always go in the fields where there's n.o.body round. Then I like to climb the old walls, where you have to jump when the stones roll off from under you."

Mrs. Breynton elevated her eyebrows with a peculiar expression, and returned to her novel.

Gypsy was one of those happy people who are gifted with the faculty of always having a pleasant time, and the solitaire game was good enough, if it hadn't been so quiet; but when she went up to bed, she looked somewhat sober. She bade Joy good-night, shut herself into the handsomely-furnished room which had been given her, sat down on the floor, and winked hard several times. She would not have objected at that moment to seeing her mother, or Tom, or pulling her father's whiskers, or squeezing Winnie a little, or looking into the dear, familiar sitting-room where they were all gathered just then to have prayers. She began to have a vague idea that there was no place like home. She also came to the conclusion, very faintly, and feeling like a traitor all the time, that her Aunt Miranda was very fas.h.i.+onable and very fretful, and did not treat Joy at all as her mother treated her; that Joy thought her countrified, and had never walked on a fence in all her life; that her uncle was very good, but very busy, and that a fortnight was a rather long time to stay there.

However, her uncle's house was not the whole of Boston. All the delights of the great, wonderful city remained unexplored, and who could tell what undreamed-of joys to-morrow would bring forth?

So Gypsy's smiles came back after their usual punctual fas.h.i.+on, and she fell asleep as soon as her head touched the pillow, to dream that she was sitting in Tom's lap, reading an Arabic novel aloud to Winnie.

It might have been about half an hour after, that she woke suddenly with a terrible feeling in her lungs and throat, and sat up in bed gasping, to see the door burst open, and her aunt come rus.h.i.+ng in.

"Is the house on fire?" asked Gypsy, sleepily.

"House on fire! It might have been. It's a wonder you're alive!"

"Alive," repeated Gypsy, bewildered.

"Why, child, you blew out the gas!" said her aunt, sharply, throwing open the windows. "Didn't you know any better than that?"

"I'm so used to blowing out our lamps," said Gypsy, feeling very much frightened and ashamed.

"Country ways!" exclaimed her aunt. "Well, thank fortune, there's no harm done,--go to sleep, like a good girl."

Gypsy did not relish being told to go to sleep like a good girl, when she had done nothing wrong; nor did her aunt's one chilly kiss, at leaving her, serve to make her forget those few sharp words.

The next morning, after breakfast, Joy proposed to go out to walk, and Gypsy ran up to put on her things in great glee. One little circ.u.mstance dashed damply on it, like water on glowing coals.