Gypsys Cousin Joy | Page 6

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.
"What's going to become of her? Who's going to take care of her?"
"That is just what I came in here to talk about."
"Why, I don't see what I have to do with it!" said Gypsy, astonished.
"Her father thinks of going abroad, and so there would be no one to
leave her with. He finds himself quite worn out by your aunt's sickness,
the care and anxiety and trouble. His business also requires some
member of the firm to go to France this fall, and he has almost decided
to go. The only thing that makes him hesitate is Joy."

"I see what you mean now, mother--I see it in your eyes. You want Joy
to come here." Gypsy spoke in a slow, uncomfortable way, as if she
were trying very hard not to believe her own words.
"Yes," said Mrs. Breynton, "that is it."
Gypsy's bright face fell. "Well?" she said, at last.
"I told your uncle," said her mother, "that I could not decide on the spot,
but would let him know next week. The question of Joy's coming here
will affect you more than any member of the family, and I thought it
only fair to you that we should talk it over frankly before it is settled."
Gypsy had a vague notion that all mothers would not have been so
thoughtful, but she said nothing.
"I do not wish," proceeded Mrs. Breynton, "to make any arrangement
in which you cannot be happy; but I have great faith in your kind heart,
Gypsy."
"I don't like Joy," said Gypsy, bluntly.
"I know that, and I am sorry it is so," said her mother. "I understand
just what Joy is. But it is not all her fault. She has not been trained just
as you have, Gypsy. She was never taught and helped to be a generous
gentle child, as you have been taught and helped. Your uncle and aunt
felt differently about these things; but it is no matter about that
now--you will understand it better when you are older. It is enough for
you to know that Joy has great excuse for her faults. Even if they were
twice as great as they are, one wouldn't think much about them now;
the poor child is in great trouble, lonely and frightened and motherless.
Think, if God took away your mother, Gypsy."
"But Joy didn't care much about her mother," said honest Gypsy. "She
used to scold her, Joy told me so herself. Besides, I heard her, ever so
many times."
"Peace be with the dead, Gypsy; let all that go. She was all the mother

Joy had, and if you had seen what I saw a night or two before I came
away, you wouldn't say she didn't love her."
"What was it?" asked Gypsy.
"Your auntie was lying all alone, upstairs. I went in softly, to do one or
two little things about the room, thinking no one was there.
"One faint gaslight was burning, and in the dimness I saw that the sheet
was turned down from the face, and a poor little quivering figure was
crouched beside it on the bed. It was Joy. She was sobbing as if her
heart would break, and such sobs--it would have made you cry to hear
them, Gypsy. She didn't hear me come in, and she began to talk to the
dead face as if it could hear her. Do you want to know what she said?"
Gypsy was looking very hard the other way. She nodded, but did not
speak, gulping down something in her throat.
"This was what she said--softly, in Joy's frightened way, you know:
'You're all I had anyway,' said she. 'All the other girls have got mothers,
and now I won't ever have any, any more. I did used to bother you and
be cross about my practising, and not do as you told me, and I wish I
hadn't, and--
"Oh--hum, look here--mother," interrupted