"Well done! I say, Gypsy, what a jewel you are when you're a mind to be."

"Of course, I am. Have you just found it out?"

"Well, you know you're a diamond, decidedly in the rough, as a general
thing. You need cutting down and polishing."

"And you to polish me? Well, I like the looks of this room, anyhow. It
_is_ nice to have things somewhere where you won't trip over them when you
walk across the room--only if somebody else would pick 'em up for me."

"How long do you suppose it will last?" asked Tom, with an air of great
superiority.

"Tom," said Gypsy, solemnly; "that's a serious question."

"It might last forever if you have a mind to have it,--come now, Gyp., why
not?"

"That's a long time," said Gypsy, shaking her head; "I wouldn't trust
myself two inches. To-morrow I shall be in a hurry to go to school; then I
shall be in a hurry to go to dinner; then I shall be in a _ter_rible hurry
to get off with Sarah Rowe, and so it goes. However, I'll see. I feel,
to-night, precisely as if I should never want to take a single pin out of
those little black squares I've put them into on the cushion."

Gypsy found herself in a hurry the next day and the next, and is likely
to, to the end of her life, I am afraid. But she seemed to have taken a
little gasp of order, and for a long time no one had any complaint to make