be shelves innumerable. Gypsy, with her
characteristic impulsiveness, would have sat up till twelve o'clock to
complete the work, but her mother said "No" very decidedly, and so it must
wait till to-morrow.

Tom came in just as everything was done, and Gypsy had drawn a long breath
and stood up to look, with great satisfaction, all around her pleasant,
orderly room.

"Well done! I say, Gypsy, what a jewel you are when you're a mind to be."

"Of course, I am. Have you just found it out?"

"Well, you know you're a diamond, decidedly in the rough, as a general
thing. You need cutting down and polishing."

"And you to polish me? Well, I like the looks of this room, anyhow. It
_is_ nice to have things somewhere where you won't trip over them when you
walk across the room--only if somebody else would pick 'em up for me."

"How long do you suppose it will last?" asked Tom, with an air of great
superiority.

"Tom," said Gypsy, solemnly; "that's a serious question."

"It might last forever if you have a mind to have it,--come now, Gyp., why
not?"

"That's a long time," said Gypsy, shaking her head; "I wouldn't trust
myself two inches. To-morrow I shall be in a hurry to go to school; then I
shall be in a hurry to go to dinner; then I shall be in a _ter_rible hurry
to get off with Sarah Rowe, and so it goes. However, I'll see. I feel,
to-night, precisely as if I should never want to take a single pin out of
those little black squares I've put them into on the cushion."

Gypsy found herself in a hurry the next day and the next, and is likely
to, to the end of her life, I am afraid. But she seemed to have taken a
little gasp of order, and for a long time no one had any complaint to make
of Gypsy's room or Gypsy's toilet.

CHAPTER III

MISS MELVILLE'S VISITOR

As will be readily supposed, Gypsy's name was not her original one; though
it might have been, for there have been actual Billys and Sallys, who
began and ended Billys and Sallys only.

Gypsy's real name was an uncouth one--Jemima. It was partly for this
reason, partly for its singular appropriateness, that her nickname had
entirely transplanted the lawful and ugly one.

This subject of nicknames is a curiosity. All rules of euphony, fitness,
and common sense, that apply to other things, are utterly at fault here. A
baby who cannot talk plainly, dubs himself "Tuty," or "Dess," or "Pet," or
"Honey," and forthwith becomes Tuty, Dess, Pet, or Honey, the r