Gypsys Cousin Joy | Page 9

ugly black. Then there are all my corals and malachites just good for nothing. Madame St. Denis--she's the dressmaker--said I couldn't wear a single thing but jet, and jet makes me look dreadfully brown."
Gypsy hung up the dress that was in her hand and walked over to the window. She felt very much as if somebody had been drawing a file across her front teeth.
She could not have explained what was the matter. Somehow she seemed to see a quick picture of her own mother dying and dead, and herself in the sad, dark dresses. And how Joy could speak so--how she could!
"Oh--only two bureau drawers! Why didn't you give me the two upper ones?" said Joy, presently, when she was ready to put away her collars and boxes.
"Because my things were in there," said Gypsy.
"But your things were in the lower ones just as much."
"I like the upper drawers best," said Gypsy, shortly.
"So do I," retorted Joy.
The hot color rushed over Gypsy's face for the second time, but now it was a somewhat angry color.
"It wasn't very pleasant to have to give up any, and there are all those wardrobe shelves I had to take my things off from too, and I don't think you've any right to make a fuss."
"That's polite!" said Joy, with a laugh. Gypsy knew it wasn't, but for that very reason she wouldn't say so.
One more subject of dispute came up almost before this was forgotten. When they were all ready to go to bed, Joy wanted the front side.
"But that's where I always sleep," said Gypsy.
"There isn't any air over the back side and I can't breathe," said Joy.
"Neither can I," said Gypsy.
"I never can get to sleep if I don't have the place I'm used to," said Joy.
"You can just as well as I can," said Gypsy. "Besides, it's my bed."
This last argument appeared to be unanswerable, and Gypsy had it her way.
She thought it over before she went to sleep, which was not very soon; for Joy was restless, and tossed on her pillow, and talked in her dreams. Of course the front side and the upper drawers belonged to her--yes, of course. She had only taken her rights. She would be obliged to anybody to show her where she was to blame.
Joy went to sleep without any thoughts, and therein lay just the difference.
CHAPTER IV
CHESTNUTS
Something woke Gypsy very early the next morning. She started up, and saw Joy standing by the bed, in the faint, gray light, all dressed and shivering with the cold.
"Well, I never!" said Gypsy.
"What's the matter?"
"What on earth have you got your dress on in the middle of the night for?"
"It isn't night; it's morning."
"Morning! it isn't any such a thing."
"'Tis, too. I heard the clock strike five ever so long ago."
Gypsy had fallen back on the pillow, almost asleep again. She roused herself with a little jump.
"See here!"
"Ow! how you frightened me," said Joy, with another jump.
[Illustration]
"Did I? Oh, well"--silence. "I don't see"--another silence--"what you wear my rubber--rubber boots for."
"Your rubber boots! Gypsy Breynton, you're sound asleep."
"Asleep!" said Gypsy, sitting up with a jerk, and rubbing both fists into her eyes. "I'm just as wide awake as you are. Oh, why, you're dressed!"
"Just found that out?" Joy broke into a laugh, and Gypsy, now quite awake, joined in it merrily. For the first time a vague notion came to her that she was rather glad Joy came. It might be some fun, after all, to have somebody round all the time to--in that untranslatable girls' phrase--"carry on with."
"But I don't see what's up," said Gypsy, winking and blinking like an owl to keep her eyes open.
"Why, I was afraid father'd get off before I was awake, so I was determined he shouldn't. I guess I kept waking up pretty much all night to see if it wasn't time."
"I wish he didn't have to go," said Gypsy. She felt sorry for Joy just then, seeing this best side of her that she liked. For about a minute she wished she had let her have the upper drawer.
[Illustration]
Joy's father started by a very early train, and it was still hardly light when he sat down to his hurried breakfast, with Joy close by him, that pale, pinched look on her face, and so utterly silent that Gypsy was astonished. She would have thought she cared nothing about her father's going, if she had not seen her standing in the gray light upstairs.
"Joyce, my child, you haven't eaten a mouthful," said her father.
"I can't."
"Come, dear, do, just a little, to please father."
Joy put a spoonful of tea to her lips, and put it down. Presently there was a great rumbling of wheels outside, and the coachman rang the door-bell.
"Well, Joy."
Joy stood up, but did not speak. Her father,