shoes and
stockings to change, and--Oh, dear! I wish people didn't ever have to do
things, anyway!"

With this very wise remark, she walked back across the ridge-pole and
climbed in the window. There was nothing for Tom to do but follow; which
he did slowly and reluctantly. Something would have to be said now, at any
rate. But not a syllable said Gypsy. She went to the looking-glass, and
began to brush her hair as unconcernedly as if everything were just as she
left it and precisely as she wanted it.

Tom passed through the room and out of the door; then he stopped. Gypsy's
eyes began to twinkle as if somebody had dropped two little diamonds in
them.

"I say," said Tom.

"What do you say?" replied Gypsy.

"What do you suppose mother would have to say to you about this _looking_
room?"

"I don't know what she'd say to you, I'm sure," said Gypsy, gravely.

"And you, a great girl, twelve years old!"

"I should like to know why I'm a railroad, anyway," said Gypsy.

"Who said you were a railroad?"

"Whoever wrote Gypsy Breynton, R. R., with my red ink."

"That doesn't stand for railroad."

"Doesn't? Well, what?"

"Regular Romp."

"Oh!"

CHAPTER II

A SPASM OF ORDER

"I can't help it," said Gypsy, after supper; "I can't possibly help it,
and it's no use for me to try."

"If you cannot help it," replied Mrs. Breynton, quietly, "then it is no
fault of yours, but in every way a suitable and praiseworthy condition of
things that you should keep your room looking as I would be ashamed to
have a servant's room look, in my house. People are never to blame for
what they can't help."

"Oh, there it is again!" said Gypsy, with the least bit of a blush, "you
always stop me right off with that, on every subject, from saying my
prayers down to threading a needle."

"Your mother was trained in the new-school theology, and she applies her
principles to things terrestrial as well as things celestial," observed
her father, with an amused smile.

"Yes, sir," said Gypsy, without the least idea what he was talking about.

"Besides," added Mrs. Breynton, finishing, as she spoke, the long darn in
Gypsy's dress, "I think people who give right up at little difficulties,
on the theory that they can't help it, are----"

"Oh, I know that too!"

"What?"

"Cowards."

"Exactly."

"I hate cowards," said Gypsy, in a little flash, and then stood with her
back half turned, her eyes fixed on the carpet, as if she