"How horrid it's going to be! You go upstairs and she won't be there, and there'll be nobody coming home from the store at night, and, then—you go round, and it's so still, and nobody but me to keep house, and Patty has just what she likes for breakfast, for all me, and I think Aunt Miranda needn't have gone and been sick, anyway."
"A most sensible and sympathizing niece," observed Tom, in his patronizing way.
"Well, you see, I suppose I don't care very much about Aunt Miranda," said Gypsy, confidentially. "I'm sorry she's sick, but I didn't have a bit nice time in Boston last vacation, and she scolded me dreadfully when I blew out the gas. What is it, Patty? Oh, yes—come to dinner, boys."
"I say," remarked Winnie, at the rather doleful dinner-table, "look here, Gypsy."
"What?"
"S'posin' when they'd got Aunt Miranda all nailed into her coffin—tight in—she should be un-deaded, and open her eyes, and begin—begin to squeal, you know. S'pose they'd let her out?"
Just four days from the morning Mrs. Breynton left, Tom came up from the office with a very sober face and a letter.
Gypsy ran out to meet him, and put out her hand, in a great hurry to read it.