"Your father and I are going in this noon train," proceeded Mrs. Breynton, rolling up a pair of slippers, and folding a wrapper away in the trunk. "I think I am needed. The fever is very severe; possibly—contagious," said Mrs. Breynton, quietly. Mrs. Breynton made it a rule to have very few concealments from her children. All family plans which could be, were openly and frankly discussed. She believed that it did the children good to feel that they had a share in them; that it did them good to be trusted. She never kept bad tidings from them simply because they were bad. The mysteries and prevarications necessary to keep an unimportant secret, were, she reasoned, worse for them than a little anxiety. Gypsy must know some time about her aunt's sickness. She preferred she should hear it from her mother's lips, see for herself the reasons for this sudden departure and risk, if risk there were, and be woman enough to understand them.
Gypsy looked sober now in earnest.
"Why, mother! How can you? What if you catch it?"
"There is very little chance of that, one possibility in a hundred, perhaps. Help me fold up this dress, Gypsy—no, on the bed—so."
"But if you should get sick! I don't see why you need go. She isn't your own sister anyway, and she never did anything for us, nor cared anything for us."
"Your uncle wants me, and that is enough. I want to be to her a sister if I can—poor thing, she has no sister of her own, and no mother, nobody but the hired nurses with her; and she may die, Gypsy. If I can be of any help, I am glad to be."
Her mother spoke in a quiet, decided tone, with which Gypsy knew there was no arguing. She helped her fold her dresses and lock her trunk, very silently, for Gypsy, and then ran away to busy herself with Patty in getting the travelers' luncheon. When Gypsy felt badly, she always hunted up something to do; in this she showed the very best of her good sense. And let me tell you, girls, as a little secret—in the worst fits of the "blues" you ever have, if you are guilty of having any, do you go straight into the nursery and build a block house for the baby, or upstairs and help your mother baste for the machine, or into the dining-room to help Bridget set the table, or into the corner where some diminutive brother is crying over his sums which a very few words from you would straighten, or into the parlor where your father sits shading his eyes from the lamplight, with no one to read him the paper; and before you know it, you will be as happy as a queen. You don't believe it? Try and see.
Gypsy drowned her sorrow at her mother's departure, in broiling her mutton-chops and cutting her pie, and by the time the coach drove to the door, and the travelers stood in the entry with bag and baggage, all ready to start, the smiles had come back to her lips, and the twinkle to her eyes.
"Good-bye, father! O-oh, mother Breynton, give me another kiss. There!—one more. Now, if you don't write just as soon as you get there!"
"Be a good girl, and take nice care of Winnie," called her mother from the coach-window. And then they were driven rapidly away, and the house seemed to grow still and dark all at once, and a great many clouds to be in the warm, autumn sky. The three children stood a moment in the entry looking forlornly at each other. I beg Tom's pardon—I suppose I should have said the two children and the "young man." Probably never again in his life will Tom feel quite as old as he felt in that sixteenth year. Gypsy was the first to break the dismal silence.