mother, quietly. "You know
I have had no time yet to hear what happened this afternoon, and I
thought you would like to tell me."

"Well," said Gypsy, "I'd just as lief;" and Gypsy looked a little, a
very little, as if she hadn't just as lief at all. "You see, 'in the
first place and commencing,' as Winnie says, Joy wanted to take him.
Now, she doesn't know anything about that child, not a thing, and if
she'd taken him to places as much as I have, and had to lug him home
screaming all the way, I guess she would have stopped wanting to, pretty
quick, and I always take Winnie when I can, you know now, mother; and
then Joy wouldn't talk going over, either."

"Whom did she walk with?" interrupted Mrs. Breynton.

"Why, with Winnie, I believe. Of course she might have come on with
Sarah and Delia and me if she'd wanted to, but--I don't know----"

"Very well," said Mrs. Breynton, "go on."

"Then, you see, Joy didn't like chestnuts, and couldn't climb, and--oh,
Winnie kept losing his shoes, and got stuck in the fence, and you never
_saw_ anything so funny! And then Joy couldn't climb, and she just hung
there swinging; and now, mother, I couldn't help laughing to save me, it
was so exactly like a great pendulum with hoops on. Well, Joy was mad
'cause we laughed and all, and so she said she'd go home. Then--let me
see--oh, it was after that, Winnie tumbled into the ditch, splash in!
with his feet up in the air, and I thought I should _go off_ to see
him."

"But what about Joy?"

"Oh, well, Joy took Winnie--he was so funny and muddy, you don't
know--'cause she brought him, you know, and so they came home, and I
thought she knew the way as much as could be, and I guess that's all."

"Well," said her mother, after a pause, "what do you think about it?"

"About what?"

"Do you think you have done just right, Gypsy?"

"I don't see why not," said Gypsy, uneasily. "It was perfectly fair Joy
should take Winnie, and of course I wasn't bound to give up my nutting
party and come home, just for her."

"I'm not speaking of what is _fair_, Gypsy. Strictly speaking, Joy had
her _rights_, and you had yours, and the arrangement might have been
called fair enough. But what do you think honestly, Gypsy--were you a
little selfish?"

Gypsy opened her eyes wide. Honestly she might have said she didn't
know. She was by nature a generous child, and the charge of selfishness
was seldom brought against her. Plenty of faults she had, but t