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 circumstance
dashed damply on it, like water on glowing coals.

"How large your casaque is about the neck," said Joy, carelessly. "I like
mine small and high, with a binding."

Gypsy remembered what her mother said: and, because her casaque happened
to be cut after Miss Jones's patterns instead of Madame Demorest's, she
did not feel that her character was seriously affected; but it was not
pleasant to have such things said. Her cousin did not mean to be unkind.
On the contrary, she had taken rather a fancy to Gypsy. She was simply a
little thoughtless and a little vain. Joy is not the only girl in Boston,
I am afraid, who has hurt the feelings of her country visitors in that
careless way.

"You've never seen the Common, I suppose, nor the Public Gardens?" said
Joy, as they started off. "We'll walk across to Boylston Street,--dear me!
you haven't any gloves on!"

"Oh, must I put them on?" said Gypsy, with a sigh; "I'm afraid I sha'n't
like Boston if I have to wear gloves week-days. I can't bear the feeling
of them."

"I suppose that's what makes your hands so red and brown," replied Joy,
astonished, casting a glance at her own sickly, white fingers, which she
was pinching into a pair of very tight kid gloves.

"Here are the Gardens," she said, proudly, as they entered the inclosure.
"Aren't they beautiful? I don't suppose you have anything like this in
Yorkbury. We'll go up to the Common in a minute."

Gypsy looked carelessly around, and did not seem to be very much impressed
or interested.

"I'd rather go over into that street where the people and the carriages
are," she said.

"Why!" exclaimed Joy; "don't you like it? See the fountains, and the deer
and the grass, and all.