ight die soon.
Through a swift blur of tears Missy looked out toward the summerhouse
where, beneath the ramblers, she decided Poppy should be buried. Poor
Poppy! The tears came so fast she couldn't wipe them away. She didn't
dream that Swinburne was primarily responsible for those tears.

Yet even her sadness held a strange, poignant element of bliss.
It struck her, oddly, that she was almost enjoying her week of
punishment--that she WAS enjoying it. Why was she enjoying it, since,
when mother first banned athletic pursuits, she had felt like a martyr?
It was queer. She pondered the mysterious complexity of her nature.

There passed two more days of this inexplicable content. Then came the
thunder-storm. It was, perhaps, the thunder-storm that really deserves
the blame for Missy's climactic athletic catastrophe. No lightning-bolt
struck, yet that thunder-storm indubitably played its part in Missy's
athletic destiny. It was the causation of renewed turmoil after time of
peace.

Tess had telephoned that morning and asked Missy to accompany her to the
Library. But Missy had to practice. In her heart she didn't really care
to go, for, after her stint was finished, she was contemplating some
new improvisings. However, the morning didn't go well. It was close
and sultry and, though she tried to make her fingers march and trot and
gallop as the exercises dictated, something in the oppressive air set
her nerves to tingling. Besides it grew so dark she couldn't see the
notes distinctly. Finally she abandoned her lesson; but even improvising
failed of its wonted charm. Her fingers kept striking the wrong keys.
Then a sudden, ear-splitting thunder-clap hurled her onto a shrieking
discord.

She jumped up from the piano; she was horribly afraid of
thunder-storms--mother wouldn't mind if she stopped till the storm was
over. She longed to go and sit close to mother, to feel the protection
of her presence; but, despite the general softening of her mood, she had
maintained a certain stiffness toward the family. So she crouched on a
sofa in the darkest corner of the room, hiding her eyes, stopping her
ears.

Then a sudden thought brought her bolt upright. Gypsy! Tess had said
Gypsy was afraid of thunder-storms--awfully afraid. And Gypsy was all
alone in that big, gloomy barn--Tess blocks away at the Library.

She tried to hide amongst the cushions again, but visions of Gypsy, with
her bright inquisitive eyes, her funny little petu