She changed her boots, tossed on her turban, whisked on her sack, and began to fasten it with a jerk, when off came the button at the throat, and rolled maliciously quite out of sight under the bed.
“There!” said Gypsy.
“Can’t wait!” shouted Tom.
“I mended that sack,” said Gypsy, “only yesterday afternoon. I call it too bad, when a body’s trying to keep their things in order, and do up all their mending, that things have to act so!”
“I think you have been trying to be orderly,” said her mother, helping her to pin the offending sack about the throat, for there was no time now to restore the wandering button. “I have noticed a great improvement in you; but there’s one thing wanting yet, that would have kept the button in its place, and had the boots properly taken off and dried at the right time.”
“What’s that?” asked Gypsy, in a great hurry to go.
“A little more thoroughness, Gypsy.”
This bit of a lesson, like most of Mrs. Breynton’s moral teachings, was enforced with a little soft kiss on Gypsy’s forehead, and a smile that was as unlike a sermon as smile could be.
Gypsy gave two thoughts to it, while she jumped down stairs three steps at a time; then, it must be confessed, she forgot it entirely, in the sight of Tom coolly walking off down the lane without her. But words that Mrs. Breynton said with a kiss did not slip away from Gypsy’s memory “for good an a’,” as easily as that. She had her own little places and times of private meditation, when such things came up to her like faithful angels, that are always ready to speak, if you give them the chance.
Tom was still in sight, among the hazel-nut bushes and budding grape-vines of the lane, and Gypsy ran swiftly after him. She was fleet of foot as a young gazelle, and soon overtook him. She had just stopped, panting, by his side, and was proceeding to make some remarks which she thought his conduct richly deserved, when the sound of some little trotting feet behind them attracted their attention.