Breynton, rolling up a pair of slippers, and folding a wrapper away in
the trunk. "I think I am needed. The fever is very severe;
possibly—contagious," said Mrs. Breynton, quietly. Mrs. Breynton made
it a rule to have very few concealments from her children. All family
plans which could be, were openly and frankly discussed. She believed
that it did the children good to feel that they had a share in them;
that it did them good to be trusted. She never kept bad tidings from
them simply because they were bad. The mysteries and prevarications
necessary to keep an unimportant secret, were, she reasoned, worse for
them than a little anxiety. Gypsy must know some time about her aunt's
sickness. She preferred she should hear it from her mother's lips, see
for herself the reasons for this sudden departure and risk, if risk
there were, and be woman enough to understand them.

Gypsy looked sober now in earnest.

"Why, mother! How can you? What if you catch it?"

"There is very little chance of that, one possibility in a hundred,
perhaps. Help me fold up this dress, Gypsy—no, on the bed—so."

"But if you should get sick! I don't see why you need go. She isn't your
own sister anyway, and she never did anything for us, nor cared anything
for us."

"Your uncle wants me, and that is enough. I want to be to her a sister
if I can—poor thing, she has no sister of her own, and no mother,
nobody but the hired nurses with her; and she may die, Gypsy. If I can
be of any help, I am glad to be."