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 Gypsy, jumping up and winking very fast, "isn't there a train up from Boston early Monday morning? She might come in that, you know."

Mrs. Breynton smiled.

"Then she may come, may she?"

"I rather think she may," said Gypsy, with an emphasis. "I'll write her a letter and tell her so."

"That will be a good plan, Gypsy. But you are quite sure? I don't want you to decide this matter in too much of a hurry."

"She'll sleep in the front room, of course?" suggested Gypsy.

"No; if she comes, she must sleep with you. With our family and only one servant, I could hardly keep up the extra work that would cause for six months or a year."

"Six months or a year! In my room!"

Gypsy walked back and forth across the room two or three times, her merry forehead all wrinkled into a knot.

"Well," at last, "I've said it, and I'll stick to it, and I'll try to make her have a good time, anyway."

"Come here, Gypsy."

Gypsy came, and one of those rare, soft kisses—very different from the ordinary, everyday kisses—that her mother gave her when she hadn't just the words to say how pleased she was, fell on her forehead, and smoothed out the knot before you could say "Jack Robinson."

That very afternoon Gypsy wrote her note to Joy:

"Dear Joy:

"I'm real sorry your mother died. You'd better come right up here next week, and we'll go chestnutting over by Mr. Jonathan Jones's. I tell you it's splendid climbing up. If you're very careful, you needn't tear your dress very badly. Then there's the raft, and you might play baseball, too. I'll teach you.

"You see if you don't have a nice time. I can't think of anything more to say.

"Your affectionate cousin,

"Gypsy."

So it was settled, and Joy came. There was no especial day appointed for the journey. Her father was to come up with her as soon as he had arranged his affairs so that he could do so, and then to go directly back to Boston and sail at once.

Gypsy found plenty to do, in getting ready for her cousin. This having a roommate for the first time in her life was by no means an unimportant event to her. Her room had always been her own especial private property. Here in a quiet nook on the broad window-sill she had curled herself up for hours with her new story-books; here she had locked herself in to learn her lessons, and keep her doll's dressmaking out of Winnie's way; here she had gone away alone to have all her "good cries;" here she sometimes spent a part of her Sabbath evenings with her most earnest and sober thoughts.

Here was the mantel-shelf, covered with her little knick-knacks that no one was ever allowed to touch but herself—pictures framed in pine cones, boxes of shell-work, baskets of wafer-work, cologne-bottles, watchcases, ivy-shoots and minerals, on which the dust accumulated at its own sweet will, and the characteristic variety and arrangement whereof none ever disputed with her. What if Joy should bring a trunkful of ornaments?

There in the wardrobe were her treasures covering six shelves—her kites and balls of twine, fishlines and doll's bonnets, scraps of gay silk and jackknives, old compositions and portfolios, colored paper and dried moss, pieces of chalk and horse-chestnuts, broken jewelry and marbles. It was a curious collection. One would suppose it to be a sort of co-partnership between the property of a boy and girl, in which the boy decidedly predominated.

Into this wardrobe Gypsy looked regretfully. Three of those shelves—those precious shelves—must be Joy's now. And what should be done with the things?

Then there were the bureau drawers. What sorcerer's charms, to say nothing of the somewhat unwilling fingers of a not very enthusiastic little girl, could cram the contents of four (and those so full that they were overflowing through the cracks) into two?

Moreover, as any one acquainted with certain chapters in Gypsy's past history will remember, her premises were not always celebrated for the utmost tidiness. And here was Joy, used to her elegant carpets and marble-covered bureaus, and gas-fixtures and Cochituate, with servants to pick up her things for her ever since she was a baby! How shocked she would be at the dust, and the ubiquitous slippers, and the slips and shreds on the carpet; and how should she have the least idea what it was to have to do things yourself?

However, Gypsy put a brave face on it, and emptied the bureau drawers, and squeezed away the treasures into three shelves, and did her best to make the room look pleasant and inviting to the little stranger. In fact, before she was through with the work she became really very much interested in it. She had put a clean white quilt upon the bed, and looped up the curtain with a handsome crimson ribbon, taken from the stock in the wardrobe. She had swept and dusted every corner and crevice; she had displayed all her ornaments to the best advantage, and put fresh cologne in the bottles. She had even brought from some sanctum, where it was folded away in the dark, a very choice silk flag about four inches long, that she had made when the war began, and was keeping very tenderly to wear when Richmond was taken, and pinned it up over her looking-glass.

On the table, too, stood her Parian vase filled with golden and blood-red maple-leaves, and the flaming berries of the burning-bush. Very prettily the room looked, when everything was finished, and Gypsy