"Gypsy Breynton. Hon. Gypsy Breynton, Esq., M. A., D. D., LL. D., &c., &c.
Gypsy Breynton, R. R."

Tom was very proud of his handwriting. It was black and business-like,
round and rolling and readable, and drowned in a deluge of hair-line
flourishes, with little black curves in the middle of them. It had been
acquired in the book-keeping class of Yorkbury high school, and had taken
a prize at the end of the summer term. And therefore did Tom lean back in
his chair, and survey, with intense satisfaction, the great sheet of
sermon-paper which was covered with his scrawlings.

Tom was a handsome fellow, if he did look very well pleased with himself
at that particular moment. His curly hair was black and bright, and
brushed off from a full forehead, and what with that faint, dark line of
moustache just visible above his lips, and that irresistible twinkle to
his great merry eyes, it was no wonder Gypsy was proud of him, as indeed
she certainly was, nor did she hesitate to tell him so twenty times a day.
This was a treatment of which Tom decidedly approved. Exactly how
beneficial it was to the growth within him of modesty, self-forgetfulness,
and the passive virtues generally, is another question.

The room in which Tom was sitting might have been exhibited with profit by
Mr. Barnum, as a legitimate relic of that chaos and Old Night, which the
poets tell us was dispelled by the light of this order-loving creation.

It had a bed in it, as well as several chairs and a carpet, but it
required considerable search to discover them, for the billows of feminine
drapery that were piled upon them. Three dresses,--Tom counted, to make
sure,--one on the bedpost, one rolled up in a heap on the floor where it