faint, sobbing sound broke the
silence. Gypsy leaned over the side of the carriage, peering in among
the trees where the shadow was blackest.

"Father, may I get out a minute?"

She sprang over the wheel, ran into the cross-road, into a clump of
bushes, pushed them aside, screamed for joy.

"Here they are, here they are--quick, quick! Oh, Winnie Breynton, do
just wake up and let me look at you! Oh, Joy, I _am_ so glad!"

And there on the ground, true enough, sat Joy, exhausted and frightened
and sobbing, with Winnie sound asleep in her lap.

"I didn't know the way, and Winnie kept telling me wrong, and, oh, I was
_so_ tired, and I sat down to rest, and it is so dark, and--and oh, I
thought nobody'd ever come!"

And poor Joy sprang into her uncle's arms, and cried as hard as she
could cry.

Joy was thoroughly tired and chilled; it seemed that she had had to
carry Winnie in her arms a large part of the way, and the child was by
no means a light weight. Evidently, Master Winnie had taken matters
pretty comfortably throughout, having had, Joy said, the utmost
confidence in his own piloting, declaring "it was just the next house,
right around the corner, Joy; how stupid in her not to know! he knew all
the whole of it just as well as anything," and was none the worse for
the adventure. Gypsy tried to wake him up, but he doubled up both fists
in his dream, and greeted her with the characteristic reply, "Naughty!"
and that was all that was to be had from him. So he was rolled up warmly
on the carriage floor; they drove home as fast as Billy would go, and
the two children, after a hot supper and a great many kisses, were put
snugly to bed.

After Joy was asleep, Mrs. Breynton said she would like to see Gypsy a
few moments downstairs.

"Yes'm," said Gypsy, and came slowly down. They sat down in the
dining-room alone. Mrs. Breynton drew up her rocking-chair by the fire,
and Gypsy took the cricket.

There was a silence. Gypsy had an uncomfortable feeling that her mother
was waiting for her to speak first. She kicked off her slipper, and put
it on; she rattled the tongs, and pounded the hearth with the poker; she
smoothed her hair out of her eyes, and folded up her handkerchief six
times; she looked up sideways at her mother; then she began to cough. At
last she broke out--

"I suppose you want me to say I'm sorry. Well, I am. But I don't see why
I'm to blame, I'm sure."

"I haven't said you were to blame," said her