“Is that all?” asked Mr. Simms, looking relieved; “why, how did it happen?”
“I jumped on it.”
“Jumped on it!”
“Yes; I’m sure I don’t know what father’ll say.”
“Well, I must say you are a wonderful young person,” said Mr. Simms, proudly. “I’m sure I’m glad that’s all. Don’t you fret, my dear. Your father won’t care much about water-nymphs, when he has such a daughter.”
“But he will,” said Gypsy, who regarded Mr. Simm’s compliments only as a tiresome interruption to conversation, and by no means as entitled to any attention; “he will be very sorry, and I am going to tell him right off. Please, Mr. Simms, will you speak to him?”
“Remarkable development of veracity!” said Mr. Simms, as he bowed himself away in his polite, old-fashioned way, and disappeared up the stairway that led to the printing-rooms. It seemed to Gypsy, waiting there so impatiently, as if her father would never come down. But come he did at last, looking very much surprised to see her, and anxious to know if the house were on fire, or if Winnie were drowned.
“No,” said Gypsy, “nothing has happened,—I mean nothing of that sort. It’s only about me. I have something to tell you.”