est of his
mortal life. All the particularly cross and disagreeable girls are Birdies
and Sunbeams. All the brunettes with loud voices and red hands, who are
growing up into the "strong-minded women," are Lilies and Effies and
Angelinas, and other etherial creatures; while the little shallow,
pink-and-white young ladies who cry very often and "get nervous," are
quite as likely to be royal Constance, or Elizabeth, without any nickname
at all.

But Gypsy's name had undoubtedly been foreordained, so perfectly was it
suited to Gypsy. For never a wild rover led a more untamed and happy life.
Summer and winter, seed-time and harvest, found Gypsy out in the open air,
as many hours out of the twenty-four as were not absolutely bolted and
barred down into the school-room and dreamland. A fear of the weather
never entered into Gypsy's creed; drenchings and freezings were so many
soap-bubbles,--great fun while they lasted, and blown right away by dry
stockings and mother's warm fire; so where was the harm? A good brisk
thunderstorm out in the woods, with the lightning quivering all about her
and the thunder crashing over her, was simple delight. A day of snow and
sleet, with drifts knee-deep, and winds like so many little knives, was a
festival. If you don't know the supreme bliss of a two-mile walk on such a
day, when you have to shut your eyes, and wade your way, then Gypsy would
pity you. Not a patch of woods, a pond, a brook, a river, a mountain, in
the region (and there, in Vermont, there were plenty of them), but Gypsy
knew it by heart.

There was not a trout-brook for miles where she had not fished. There was
hardly a tree she had not climbed, or a fence or stone-wall--provided, of
course, that it was away from the main road and people's eyes--that she
had not walked. Gypsy could row and skate and swim, and play ball and make
kites, and coast and race, and drive, and chop wood. Altogether Gypsy
seemed like a very pretty, piquant mistake; as if a mischievous boy had
somehow stolen the plaid dresses, red cheeks, quick wit, and little
indescribable graces of a girl, and was playing off a continual joke on
the world. Old Mrs. Surly, who lived opposite, and wore green spectacles,
used to roll up her eyes, and say What _would_ become of that child? A
whit cared Gypsy for Mrs. Surly! As long as her mother thought the sport
and exercise in the open air a fine thing for her, and did not complain of
the torn dresses oftener than twi