CHAPTER VIII
THE STORY OF A NIGHT
November, with its bright, bleak skies, sere leaves tossing, sad winds sobbing, and rains that wept for days and nights together, on dead flowers and dying grasses, moaned itself away at last, and December swept into its place with a good rousing snow-storm, merry sleigh-bells, and bright promises of coming Christmas. The girls coasted and skated, and made snow-men and snowballs and snow-forts. Joy learned to slide down a moderate hill at a mild rate without screaming, and to get along somehow on her skates alone—for the very good reason that Tom wouldn't help her. Gypsy initiated her into the mysteries of "cannon-firing" from the great icy forts, and taught her how to roll the huge balls of snow. Altogether they had a very good time. Not as good as they might have had, by any means; the old rubs and jars were there still, though of late they had been somewhat softened. Partly on account of their talk with Peace; partly because of a certain uncomfortable acquaintance called conscience; partly because of their own good sense, the girls had tacitly made up their minds at least to make an effort to live together more happily. In some degree they succeeded, but they were like people walking over a volcano; the trouble was not quenched; it lay always smoldering out of sight, ready at a moment's notice to flare up into angry flame. The fault lay perhaps no more with one than another. Gypsy had never had a sister, and her brothers were neither of them near enough to her own age to interfere very much with her wishes and privileges. Moreover, a brother, though he may be the greatest tease in existence, is apt to be easier to get along with than a sister about one's own age. His pleasures and ambitions run in different directions from the girls; there is less clashing of interests. Besides this, Gypsy's playmates in Yorkbury, as has been said, had not chanced to be girls of very strong wills. Quite to her surprise, since Joy had been her roommate and constant companion, had she found out that she—Gypsy—had been pretty well used to having her own way, and that other people sometimes liked to have theirs.
As for Joy, she had always been an only child, and that tells a history. Of the two perhaps she had the more to learn. The simple fact that she was brought wisely and kindly, but thoroughly, under Mrs. Breynton's control, was decidedly a revelation to her. At her own home, it had always been said, from the time she was a baby, that her mother could not manage her, and her father would not. She rebelled a little at first against her aunt's authority, but she was fast learning to love her, and when we love, obedience ceases to be obedience, and becomes an offering freely given.
A little thing happened one day, showing that sadder and better side of Joy's heart that always seemed to touch Gypsy.
They had been having some little trouble about the lessons at school; it just verged on a quarrel, and slided off, and they had treated each other pleasantly after it. At night Joy was sitting upstairs writing a letter to her father, when a gust of wind took the sheet and blew it to Gypsy's feet. Gypsy picked it up to carry it to her, and in doing so, her eyes fell accidentally on some large, legible words at the bottom of the page. She had not the slightest intention of reading them, but their meaning came to her against her will, in that curious way we see things in a flash sometimes. This was what she saw: