eir 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 together
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. Moreover, a brother, though he may be the greatest 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 different 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 roommate 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 _thoroughly_, under Mrs. Breynton'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
letter 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 intention of reading them, but their
meaning came to her aga