GYPSY'S COUSIN JOY

CHAPTER I

NEWS


The second arithmetic class had just come out to recite, when somebody
knocked at the door. Miss Cardrew sent Delia Guest to open it.

"It's a—ha, ha! letter—he, he! for you," said Delia, coming up to
the desk. Exactly wherein lay the joke, in the fact that Miss Cardrew
should have a letter, nobody but Delia was capable of seeing; but Delia
was given to seeing jokes on all occasions, under all circumstances. Go
wherever you might, from a prayer-meeting to the playground, you were
sure to hear her little giggle.

"A letter for you," repeated Delia Guest. "He, he!"

Miss Cardrew laid down her arithmetic, opened the letter, and read it.
"Gypsy Breynton."

[Illustration]

The arithmetic class stopped whispering, and there was a great lull in
the schoolroom.

"Why I never!" giggled Delia. Gypsy, all in a flutter at having her name
read right out in school, and divided between her horror lest the kitten
she had tied to a spool of thread at recess, had been discovered, and an