Gypsys Cousin Joy | Page 5

peculiar emphasis with which Tom was wont to dwell on this
word.) But for all that, when Gypsy came down in her new Scotch
plaid dress, with her cheeks so red, and her hair so smooth and black;
and Winnie strutted across the room counting the buttons on his best
jacket, Tom slipped away to his room, and came down with his purple
necktie on.
It made a pretty, homelike picture--the bright table and the firelight,
and the eager faces at the window, and the gay dresses. Any father and
mother might have been glad to call it all their own, and come into it

out of the cold and the dark, after a weary day's journey.
These cozy, comfortable touches about it--the little conceit of the
painted china, and the best clothes--were just like Gypsy. Since she was
glad to see her father and mother, it was imperatively necessary that she
should show it; there was no danger but what her joy would have been
sufficiently evident--where everything else was--in her eyes; but
according to Gypsy's view of matters, it must express itself in some sort
of celebration. Whether her mother wouldn't have been quite as well
pleased if her delicate, expensive porcelain had been kept safely in the
closet; whether, indeed, it was exactly right for her to take it out
without leave, Gypsy never stopped to consider. When she wanted to
do a thing, she could never see any reasons why it shouldn't be done,
like a few other girls I have heard of in New England. However, just
such a mother as Gypsy had was quite likely to pardon such a little
carelessness as this, for the love in it, and the welcoming thoughts.
"They're comin', comin', comin'," shouted Winnie, from the door-steps,
where, in the exuberance of his spirits, he was trying very hard to stand
on his head, and making a most remarkable failure--"they're comin'
lickitycut, and I'm five years old, 'n' I've got on my best jacket, 'n'
they're comin' slam bang!"
"Coming, coming, coming!" echoed Gypsy, about as wild as Winnie
himself, and flying past him down to the gate, leaving Tom to follow in
Tom's own dignified way.
Such a kissing, and laughing, and talking, and delightful confusion as
there was then! Such a shouldering of bags and valises and shawls,
such hurrying of mother in out of the cold; such a pulling of father's
whiskers, such peeping into mysterious bundles, and pulling off of
wrappers, and hurrying Patty with the tea-things; and questions and
answers, and everybody talking at once--one might have supposed the
travelers had been gone a month instead of a week.
"My kitty had a fit," observed Winnie, the first pause he could find.
"And there are some letters for father," from Tom.

"Patty has a new beau," interrupted Gypsy.
"It was an awfully fit," put in Winnie, undiscouraged; "she rolled under
the stove, 'n' tell you she squealed, and----"
"How is uncle?" asked Tom, and it was the first time any one had
thought to ask.
"Then she jumped--splash! into the hogshead," continued Winnie,
determined to finish.
"He is not very well," said Mr. Breynton, gravely, and then they sat
down to supper, talking the while about him. Winnie subsided in great
disgust, and devoted himself, body, mind, and heart, to the drop-cakes.
"Ah, the best china, I see," said Mrs. Breynton, presently, with one of
her pleasantest smiles, and as Mrs. Breynton's smiles were always
pleasant, this was saying a great deal. "And the Sunday things on,
too--in honor of our coming? How pleasant it all seems! and how glad I
am to be at home again."
Gypsy looked radiant--very much, in fact, like a little sun dropped
down from the sky, or a jewel all ablaze.
Some mothers would have reproved her for the use of the china; some
who had not quite the heart to reprove would have said they were sorry
she had taken it out. Mrs. Breynton would rather have had her
handsome plates broken to atoms than to chill, by so much as a look,
the glow of the child's face just then.
There was decidedly more talking than eating done at supper, and they
lingered long at the table, in the pleasant firelight and lamplight.
"It seems exactly like the resurrection day for all the world," said
Gypsy.
"The resurrection day?"
"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,