e sat laughing that
morning.

But Gypsy long remembered--she remembers now with dim eyes and
quivering smile--how Peace drew her face down softly on the pillow,
pointing to the blue and golden words upon the wall, and said in a
whisper that nobody else heard:

"That is best of all. Oh, Gypsy, when I woke up in the morning and found
it!"

CHAPTER IX

UP RATTLESNAKE

"I should think we might, I'm sure," said Joy pausing, with a crisp bit
of halibut on her fork, just midway between her plate and her lips.

"You needn't shake your head so, Mother Breynton," said Gypsy, her great
brown eyes pleading over her teacup with their very most irresistible
twinkle. "Now it isn't the slightest trouble to say yes, and you can
just as well say it now as any other time, you know."

"But it really seems to me a little dangerous, Gypsy,--up over those
mountain roads on livery-stable horses."

"But Tom says it isn't a bit dangerous, and Tom's been up it forty
times. Rattlesnake has the best roads of any of the mountains round
here, and there are fences by all the precipices, Tom said, didn't you,
Tom?"

"No," said Tom, coolly. "There isn't a fence. There are logs in some
places, and in some there aren't."

"Oh, what a bother you are! Well, any way it's all the same, and I'm not
a bit afraid of stable horses. I can manage any of them, from Mr. Burt's
iron-gray colt down," which was true enough. Gypsy was used to riding,
and perfectly fearless.

"But Joy hasn't ridden much, and I should never forgive myself if any
accident happened to her while her father is gone."

"Joy can ride Billy. There isn't a cow in Yorkbury safer."

Mrs. Breynton sipped her tea and thought about it.

"I want to go horsebacking, too," put in Winnie, glaring savagely at
Gypsy over his bread and milk. "I'm five years old."

"And jerked six whole buttons off your jacket this very day," said
Gypsy, eyeing certain gaps of which there were always more or less to be
seen in Winnie's attire in spite of his mother's care. "A boy who jerks
buttons like that couldn't go 'horsebacking.' You wouldn't have one left
by the time you came home,--look out, you'll have your milk over. You
tipped it over times enough this morning for one day."

"You _will_ have your milk over; don't stand the mug up on the
napkin-ring,--no, nor on that crust of bread, either," repeated his
mother, and everybody looked up anxiously, and edged away a little from
Winnie's imme