Gypsy went up warmly, and kissed her. Joy had extended the tips of her fingers to shake hands, and she looked a little surprised, but kissed her politely, and asked if she were tired with the journey. Just then Mrs. Breynton came in, with many apologies for her delay, met Gypsy kindly enough, and sent her up-stairs to take off her things.
“Who trimmed your hat?” asked Joy, suddenly.
“Miss Jones. She’s our milliner.”
“Oh,” said Joy, “mine is a pheasant. Nobody thinks of wearing velvet now—most everybody has a pheasant.”
“I shouldn’t like to wear just what everybody else did,” Gypsy could not help saying. She hung the turban up in the closet, with a little uncomfortable feeling. It was a fine drab straw, trimmed and bound with velvet a shade darker. It was pretty, and she knew it; it just matched her casaque, and her mother had thought it all the more lady-like for its simplicity. Nevertheless, it was not going to be very pleasant to have her cousin Joy ashamed of her.
“Oh, oh, how short they wear dresses in Yorkbury!” remarked Joy, as Gypsy walked across the room. “Mine are nearly to the tops of my boots, now I’m thirteen years old.”
“Are they?—where did I put my bag?” said Gypsy, carelessly. Joy looked a little piqued that she did not seem more impressed.
“There’s dinner,” she said, after a silence, in which she had been secretly inspecting and commenting upon every article of Gypsy’s attire. “Come, let’s go down. Mother scolds if we’re late.”
“Scolds!” said Gypsy. “How funny! my mother never scolds.”
“Doesn’t she?” asked Joy, a little wonder in her eyes.