ONE EVENING
So it was settled, and Joy came. There was no especial day appointed for the journey. Her father was to come up with her as soon as he had arranged his affairs so that he could do so, and then to go directly back to Boston and sail at once.
Gypsy found plenty to do, in getting ready for her cousin. This having a roommate for the first time in her life was by no means an unimportant event to her. Her room had always been her own especial private property. Here in a quiet nook on the broad window-sill she had curled herself up for hours with her new story-books; here she had locked herself in to learn her lessons, and keep her doll's dressmaking out of Winnie's way; here she had gone away alone to have all her "good cries;" here she sometimes spent a part of her Sabbath evenings with her most earnest and sober thoughts.
Here was the mantel-shelf, covered with her little knick-knacks that no one was ever allowed to touch but herself—pictures framed in pine cones, boxes of shell-work, baskets of wafer-work, cologne-bottles, watchcases, ivy-shoots and minerals, on which the dust accumulated at its own sweet will, and the characteristic variety and arrangement whereof none ever disputed with her. What if Joy should bring a trunkful of ornaments?
There in the wardrobe were her treasures covering six shelves—her kites and balls of twine, fishlines and doll's bonnets, scraps of gay silk and jackknives, old compositions and portfolios, colored paper and dried moss, pieces of chalk and horse-chestnuts, broken jewelry and marbles. It was a curious collection. One would suppose it to be a sort of co-partnership between the property of a boy and girl, in which the boy decidedly predominated.
Into this wardrobe Gypsy looked regretfully. Three of those shelves—those precious shelves—must be Joy's now. And what should be done with the things?