ee," said Mrs. Breynton, presently, with one of
her pleasantest smiles, and as Mrs. Breynton's smiles were always
pleasant, this was saying a great deal. "And the Sunday things on,
too--in honor of our coming? How pleasant it all seems! and how glad I
am to be at home again."

Gypsy looked radiant--very much, in fact, like a little sun dropped
down from the sky, or a jewel all ablaze.

Some mothers would have reproved her for the use of the china; some who
had not quite the heart to reprove would have said they were sorry she
had taken it out. Mrs. Breynton would rather have had her handsome
plates broken to atoms than to chill, by so much as a look, the glow of
the child's face just then.

There was decidedly more talking than eating done at supper, and they
lingered long at the table, in the pleasant firelight and lamplight.

"It seems exactly like the resurrection day for all the world," said
Gypsy.

"The resurrection day?"

"Why, yes. When you went off I kept thinking everybody was dead and
buried, all that morning, and it was real horrid--Oh, you don't know!"

[Illustration]

"Gypsy," said Mrs. Breynton, a while after supper, when Winnie had gone
to bed, and Tom and his father were casting accounts by the fire, "I
want to see you a few minutes." Gypsy, wondering, followed her into the
parlor. Mrs. Breynton shut the door, and they sat down together on the
sofa.

"I want to have a talk with you, Gypsy, about something that we'd better
talk over alone."

"Yes'm," said Gypsy, quite bewildered by her mother's grave manner, and
thinking up all the wrong things she had done for a week. Whether it was
the time she got so provoked at Patty for having dinner late, or scolded
Winnie for trying to paint with the starch (and if ever any child
deserved it, he did), or got kept after school for whispering, or
brought down the nice company quince marmalade to eat with the blanc
mange, or whether----

"You haven't asked about your cousin, Joy," said her mother,
interrupting her thinking.

"Oh!--how is she?" said Gypsy, looking somewhat ashamed.

"I am sorry for the child," said Mrs. Breynton, musingly.

"What's going to become of her? Who's going to take care of her?"

"That is just what I came in here to talk about."

"Why, I don't see what I have to do with it!" said Gypsy, astonished.

"Her father thinks of going abroad, and so there would be no one to
leave her with. He finds himself quite worn out by your