"Why, I--don't know exactly. I took out my drawer to fix it up, and my
beads were all in a muss, and so I thought I'd sort them, and then I
forgot."

"I see several things in the room that want putting in order before a
little box of beads," said Mrs. Breynton, with a smile that was half
amused, half sorrowful. Gypsy cast a deprecating glance around the room,
and into her mother's face.

"Oh, I _did_ mean to shut the wardrobe door, and I thought I'd taken the
broom down stairs as much as could be, but that everlasting Tom had to go
and---- Oh dear! did you ever see anything so funny in all your life?" And
Gypsy looked at the image, and broke into one of her rippling laughs.

"It is really a serious matter, Gypsy," said Mrs. Breynton, looking
somewhat troubled at the laugh.

"I know it," said Gypsy, sobering down, "and I came up-stairs on purpose
to put everything to rights, and then I was going to live like other
people, and keep my stockings darned, and--then I had to go head first
into a box of beads, and that was the end of me. It's always so."

"You know, Gypsy, it is one of the signs of a lady to keep one's room in
order; I've told you so many times."

"I know it," said Gypsy, forlornly; "don't you remember when I was a
little bit of a thing, my telling you that I guessed God made a mistake
when he made me, and put in some ginger-beer somehow, that was always
going off? It's pretty much so; the cork's always coming out at the wrong