"Why, yes. When you went off I kept thinking everybody was dead and
buried, all that morning, and it was real horrid—Oh, you don't know!"

[Illustration]

"Gypsy," said Mrs. Breynton, a while after supper, when Winnie had gone
to bed, and Tom and his father were casting accounts by the fire, "I
want to see you a few minutes." Gypsy, wondering, followed her into the
parlor. Mrs. Breynton shut the door, and they sat down together on the
sofa.

"I want to have a talk with you, Gypsy, about something that we'd better
talk over alone."

"Yes'm," said Gypsy, quite bewildered by her mother's grave manner, and
thinking up all the wrong things she had done for a week. Whether it was
the time she got so provoked at Patty for having dinner late, or scolded
Winnie for trying to paint with the starch (and if ever any child
deserved it, he did), or got kept after school for whispering, or
brought down the nice company quince marmalade to eat with the blanc
mange, or whether——

"You haven't asked about your cousin, Joy," said her mother,
interrupting her thinking.

"Oh!—how is she?" said Gypsy, looking somewhat ashamed.

"I am sorry for the child," said Mrs. Breynton, musingly.