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children were all eyes at Viny and her costume, but they said never a word while she howled on steadily, only ejaculating in an occasional gust, "O Miss Sylvy--Miss Sylvy!" Caryl, white as a sheet, rushed out of the carriage and into the old lodging house the instant the horses paused by the broken gate. Maum Patty was singing in the little kitchen the refrain she never indulged in except in her most complacent moods. Flinging wide the door, Caryl panted out, "Oh, what is it! Tell me at once!" "Lawks!" exclaimed Maum Patty, startled from her peaceful enjoyment, and turning so suddenly in the old calico-covered chair that she sent her spectacles spinning into the middle of the floor. "Massy, how yer look! Tain't wurth it--don't! He hain't spile't it; I stopped him," she added exultingly. "Stopped what?" echoed Caryl in bewildered distress. "Oh, do tell me! Is'nt Aunt Sylvia sick? Tell me, Maum Patty," she pleaded. And she grasped the old woman's arm in an agony of suspense. "Massy, no!" declared Maum Patty in her most cheery tones, "she's ben a-laughin' fit to kill herself, an' I don't wonder, for the little rascal looked as cunnin' as an imp. But I stopped him I stopped him!" she added triumphantly. Caryl had no strength to ask further, nor to stir. The reaction was too great, and she leaned up against the door for support. "He shuck it, an' shuck it," said the old woman, laughing immoderately. "Laws, how he shuck it--dat Jip did--yer aunt's beyeutiful cap with the new puppel ribbons! Ye see it tumbled off; I dunno wedder she sneezed, or wot she did, but anyway, it tumbled off on de flo', and dat little pison scamp jumped up from his rug an' cotched it, an' she a-callin' an'a-callin, fit ver die--I'll snake dat Viny w'en I gets her.--Lawks, but I couldn't help it! I laughed till I cried to see dat dog carry on. Luckily I run up just when I did to pay my 'specs to de Missis, for--I stopped him, I stopped him," she brought herself up to declare, wiping her eyes. "Viny," said Caryl, in her little room, an hour after, when everything had been confessed and forgiven; when the delightful story had all come out, how they were really and truly to move that very afternoon; how Madam Grant had paid the rent in advance for the sunny rooms in the little cottage, and they were just driving around to surprise Aunt Sylvia when they witnessed Viny's escapade; how the carriage was to come before very long to take dear Aun
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