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Breynton's, who felt herself particularly responsible for Gypsy's training, and gave her good advice, double measure, pressed down and running over. One morning it chanced that Gypsy was playing "stick-knife" with Tom out in the front yard, and that Mrs. Surly beheld her from her parlor window, and that Mrs. Surly was shocked. She threw up her window and called in an awful voice—
The simple fact that she was brought wisely and kindly, but thoroughly, under Mrs. Breynton's control, was decidedly a revelation to her. At her own home, it had always been said, from the time she was a baby, that her mother could not manage her, and her father would not.
Like a dream it seemed to the girls to be hurrying away at five o'clock, from an unfinished breakfast, from Mrs. Breynton's gentle good-bye, Tom's valuable patronage and advice, and Winnie's reminder that he was five years old, and that to the candid mind it was perfectly clear that he ought "to go too-o-oo."
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.
Breynton's over-anxiety—fussiness, some people would have called it—his children were perfectly conscious of; children are apt to be the first to discover their parents' faults and weaknesses. Gypsy loved her father dearly, but she somehow always felt as if he must be managed. So it came about that on a certain royal June day, a merry party started for a horseback ride up Rattlesnake mountain.
Breynton's moral teachings, was enforced with a little soft kiss on Gypsy's forehead, and a smile that was as unlike a sermon as smile could be. Gypsy gave two thoughts to it, while she jumped down stairs three steps at a time; then, it must be confessed, she forgot it entirely, in the sight of Tom coolly walking off down the lane without her. But words that Mrs.
They were grouped around the room in the fading western light, Gypsy and Tom together by the window, Winnie perched demurely on the piano-stool, and Joy on the cricket at Mrs. Breynton's feet. The faint light was touching her face, and her mournful dress with its heavy crape trimmings,—there were no white chenille and silver brooches now; Joy had laid these things aside of her own wish.
Gypsy had been having a great frolic in the fresh hay with Sarah Rowe, and came in late. No one but Winnie was there. She ate her supper in a great hurry, and went out again. Patty saw her from the window, and concluded she had gone to Mrs. Littlejohn's. That night, about eleven o'clock, some one knocked at Mrs. Breynton's door, and woke her up. "Who is it?" she called.
But it ended in Gypsy's bringing her triumphantly downstairs, where were the lights and the fire, and the pleasant room, and another cricket waiting at Mrs. Breynton's feet. They were very busy after this with the coming Christmas. Joy confidently expected a five-dollar bill from her father, and Gypsy cherished faint aspirations after a portfolio with purple roses on it.
Two or three weeks after that Mrs. Littlejohn, who had been gaining rapidly in strength and good temper under Mrs. Breynton's wise and kindly care, took it into her head one morning, when she was alone, to walk across the room, and look out of the window. The weakened limb was not in a fit state to be used at all, and the shock given to it was very great.
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