A soft brushing against her ankles told her that Poppylinda, her cat, had come to say good night. She lifted her pet up to the sill.
“See the beautiful night, Poppy,” she said. “See!—it's just like a great, soft, lovely, blue-silver bed!”
Poppy gave a gentle purr of acquiescence. Missy was sure it was acquiescence. She was convinced that Poppy had a fine, appreciative, discriminating mind. Aunt Nettie scouted at this; she denied that she disliked Poppy, but said she “liked cats in their place.” Missy knew this meant, of course, that inwardly she loathed cats; that she regarded them merely as something which musses up counterpanes and keeps outlandish hours. Aunt Nettie was perpetually finding fault with Poppy; but Missy had noted that Aunt Nettie and all the others who emphasized Poppy's imperfections were people whom Poppy, in her turn, for some reason could not endure. This point she tried to make once when Poppy had been convicted of a felonious scratch, but of course the grown-ups couldn't follow her reasoning. Long since she'd given up trying to make clear the real merits of her pet; she only knew that Poppy was more loving and lovable, more sympathetic and comprehending, than the majority of humans. She could count on Poppy's never jarring on any mood, whether grave or gay. Poppy adored listening to poetry read aloud, sitting immovable save for slowly blinking eyes for an hour at a stretch. She even had an appreciation for music, often remaining in the parlour throughout her mistress's practice period, and sometimes purring an accompaniment to tunes she especially liked—such tunes as “The Maiden's Prayer” or “Old Black Joe with Variations.” There was, too, about her a touch of something which Missy thought must be mysticism; for Poppy heard sounds and saw things which no one else could—following these invisible objects with attentive eyes while Missy saw nothing; then, sometimes, she would get up suddenly, switching her tail, and watch them as they evidently disappeared. But Missy never mentioned Poppy's gift of second sight; she knew the old people would only laugh.
Now she cuddled Poppy in her lap, and with a sense of companionship, enjoyed the landscape of silvered loveliness and peace. A sort of sad enjoyment, but pleasantly sad. Occasionally she sighed, but it was a sigh of deep content. Such things as perching dizzily atop a horse's back, even cantering in graceful insouciance, seemed far, far away.
Yet, after she was in her little white bed, in smiling dreams she saw herself, smartly accoutred in gleaming boots and pepper-and-salt riding-breeches, galloping up to Pieker's grocery and there, in the admiring view of the Post Office loafers and of a dumbfounded Arthur, cantering insouciantly across the sidewalk and into the store!
Her dream might have ended there, nothing more than a fleeting phantasm, had not Tess, the following week, come into possession of Gypsy.
Gypsy was a black pony with a white star on her forehead and a long wavy tail. She was a pony with a personality—from the start Missy recognized the pony as a person just as she recognized Poppy as a person. When Gypsy gazed at you out of those soft, bright eyes, or when she pricked up her ears with an alert listening gesture, or when she turned her head and switched her tail with nonchalant unconcern—oh, it is impossible to describe the charm of Gypsy. That was it—“charm”; and the minute Missy laid eyes on the darling she succumbed to it. She had thought herself absurdly but deep-rootedly afraid of all horseflesh, but Gypsy didn't seem a mere horse. She was pert, coquettish, coy, loving, inquisitive, naughty; both Tess and Missy declared she had really human intelligence.
She began to manifest this the very day of her arrival. After Tess had ridden round the town and shown off properly, she left the pony in the sideyard of the sanitarium while she and Missy slipped off to the summerhouse to enjoy a few stolen chapters from “The Duchess.” There was high need for secrecy for, most unreasonably, “The Duchess” had been put under a parental ban; moreover Tess feared there were stockings waiting to be darned.
Presently they heard Mrs. O'Neill calling, but they just sat still, stifling their giggles. Gypsy, who had sauntered up to the summerhouse door, poked in an inquisitive nose. Mrs. O'Neill didn't call again, so Tess whispered: “She thinks we've gone over to your house—we can go on reading.”
After a while Missy glanced up and nudged Tess. “Gypsy's still there—just standing and looking at us! See her bright eyes—the darling!”