nd I tipped over last
spring,--clear over, splash!"

"You will ruin your complexion," remarked her aunt, laying down her novel.
"I suppose you never wear a veil."

"A veil? Dear me, no! I can't bear the feeling of a veil. I wore one in
the cars through, to keep the cinders off. Then, besides that, I row and
coast, and,--oh, I forgot, walking on the fences; it's real fun if you
don't tumble off."

_"Walking on the fences!"_

"Oh, yes. I always go in the fields where there's nobody round. Then I
like to climb the old walls, where you have to jump when the stones roll
off from under you."

Mrs. Breynton elevated her eyebrows with a peculiar expression, and
returned to her novel.

Gypsy was one of those happy people who are gifted with the faculty of
always having a pleasant time, and the solitaire game was good enough, if
it hadn't been so quiet; but when she went up to bed, she looked somewhat
sober. She bade Joy good-night, shut herself into the handsomely-furnished
room which had been given her, sat down on the floor, and winked hard
several times. She would not have objected at that moment to seeing her
mother, or Tom, or pulling her father's whiskers, or squeezing Winnie a
little, or looking into the dear, familiar sitting-room where they were
all gathered just then to have prayers. She began to have a vague idea
that there was no place like home. She also came to the conclusion, very
faintly, and feeling like a traitor all the time, that her Aunt Miranda
was very fashionable and very fretful, and did not treat Joy at all as her
mother treated her; that Joy thought her countrified, and had never walked
on a fence in all her life; that her uncle was very good, but very busy,
and that a fortnight was a rather long time to stay there.

However, her uncle's house was not the whole of Boston. All the delights
of the great, wonderful city remained unexplored, and who could tell what
undreamed-of joys to-morrow would bring forth?

So Gypsy's smiles came back after their usual punctual fashion, and she
fell asleep as soon as her head touched the pillow, to dream that she was
sitting in Tom's lap, reading an Arabic novel aloud to Winnie.

It might have been about half an hour after, that she woke suddenly with a
terrible feeling in her lungs and throat, and sat up in bed gasping, to
see the door burst open, and her aunt come rushing in.

"Is the house on fire?" asked Gypsy, sleepily.

"House on fire! It might have