Joy broke away from her cousin in a passion. Gypsy flew into the door of the miserable house, up the stairs two steps at a time, to the door of a low room in the second story, and rushed in without knocking.
"Oh, Peace Maythorne!"
The cripple lying on the bed turned her pale face to the door, her large, quiet eyes blue with wonder.
"Why, Gypsy! What is the matter?"
Gypsy's face was white still, very white. She shut the door loudly, and sat down on the bed with a jar that shook it all over. A faint expression of pain crossed the face of Peace.
"Oh, I didn't mean to—it was cruel in me! How could I? Have I hurt you very badly, Peace?" Gypsy slipped down upon the floor, the color coming into her face now, from shame and sorrow. Peace gently motioned her back to her place upon the bed, smiling.
"Oh, no. It was nothing. Sit up here; I like to have you. Now, what is it, Gypsy?"
The tone of this "What is it, Gypsy?" told a great deal. It told that it was no new thing for Gypsy to come there just so, with her troubles and her joys, her sins and her well-doings, her plans and hopes and fears, all the little stories of the fresh, young life from which the cripple was forever shut out. It told, too, what Gypsy found in this quiet room, and took away from it—all the help and the comfort, and the sweet, sad lessons. It told, besides, much of what Peace and Gypsy were to each other, that only they two should ever exactly understand. It was a tone that always softened Gypsy, in her gayest frolics, in her wildest moods. For the first time since she had known Peace, it failed to soften her now.
She began in her impetuous way, her face angry and flushed, her voice trembling yet:—
"I can't tell you what it is, and that's the thing of it! It's about that horrid old Joy."