Gypsys Cousin Joy | Page 3

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."
Her mother spoke in a quiet, decided tone, with which Gypsy knew there was no arguing. She helped her fold her dresses and lock her trunk, very silently, for Gypsy, and then ran away to busy herself with Patty in getting the travelers' luncheon. When Gypsy felt badly, she always hunted up something to do; in this she showed the very best of her good sense. And let me tell you, girls, as a little secret--in the worst fits of the "blues" you ever have, if you are guilty of having any, do you go straight into the nursery and build a block house for the baby, or upstairs and help your mother baste for the machine, or into the dining-room to help Bridget set the table, or into the corner where some diminutive brother is crying over his sums which a very few words from you would straighten, or into the parlor where your father sits shading his eyes from the lamplight, with no one to read him the paper; and before you know it, you will be as happy as a queen. You don't believe it? Try and see.
Gypsy drowned her sorrow at her mother's departure, in broiling her mutton-chops and cutting her pie, and by the time the coach drove to the door, and the travelers stood in the entry with bag and baggage, all ready to start, the smiles had come back to her lips, and the twinkle to her eyes.
"Good-bye, father! O-oh, mother Breynton, give me another kiss. There!--one more. Now, if you don't write just as soon as you get there!"
"Be a good girl, and take nice care of Winnie," called her mother from the coach-window. And then they were driven rapidly away, and the house seemed to grow still and dark all at once, and a great many clouds to be in the warm, autumn sky. The three children stood a moment in the entry looking forlornly at each other. I beg Tom's pardon--I suppose I should have said the two children and the "young man." Probably never again in his life will Tom feel quite as old as he felt in that sixteenth year. Gypsy was the first to break the dismal silence.
"How horrid it's going to be! You go upstairs and she won't be there, and there'll be nobody coming home from the store at night, and, then--you go round, and it's so still, and nobody but me to keep house, and Patty has just what she likes for breakfast, for all me, and I think Aunt Miranda needn't have gone and been sick, anyway."
"A most sensible and sympathizing niece," observed Tom, in his patronizing way.
"Well, you see, I suppose I don't care very much about Aunt Miranda," said Gypsy, confidentially. "I'm sorry she's sick, but I didn't have a bit nice time in Boston last vacation, and she scolded me dreadfully when I blew out the gas. What is it, Patty? Oh, yes--come to dinner, boys."
"I say," remarked Winnie, at the rather doleful dinner-table, "look here, Gypsy."
"What?"
[Illustration]
"S'posin' when they'd got Aunt Miranda all nailed into her coffin--tight in--she should be un-deaded, and open her eyes, and begin--begin to squeal, you know. S'pose they'd let her out?"
Just four days from the morning Mrs. Breynton left, Tom came up from the office with a very sober face and a letter.
Gypsy ran out to meet him, and put out her hand, in a great hurry to read it.
"I'll read it to you," said Tom; "it's to me. Come into the parlor."
They went in, and Tom read:
"My Dear Son:
"I write in great haste, just to let you know that your Aunt Miranda is gone. She died last night at nine o'clock, in great distress. I was with her at the last. I am glad I came--very; it seems to have been a comfort to her; she was so lonely and deserted. The funeral is day after to-morrow, and we shall stay of course. We hope to be home on Monday. There has been no time yet to make