“Oh, there it is again!” said Gypsy, with the least bit of a blush, “you always stop me right off with that, on every subject, from saying my prayers down to threading a needle.”
“Your mother was trained in the new-school theology, and she applies her principles to things terrestrial as well as things celestial,” observed her father, with an amused smile.
“Yes, sir,” said Gypsy, without the least idea what he was talking about.
“Besides,” added Mrs. Breynton, finishing, as she spoke, the long darn in Gypsy’s dress, “I think people who give right up at little difficulties, on the theory that they can’t help it, are——”
“Oh, I know that too!”
“What?”
“Cowards.”
“Exactly.”
“I hate cowards,” said Gypsy, in a little flash, and then stood with her back half turned, her eyes fixed on the carpet, as if she were puzzling out a proposition in Euclid, somewhere hidden in its brown oak-leaves.
“Take a chair, and sit by the window and think of it,” remarked Tom, in his most aggravating tone.