Scarcely were the words off from Joy's lips, when Gypsy, sitting down on the stairs to laugh, tipped over her basket, and every solitary stick of that wood clattered down the uncarpeted stairs, thumped through the banisters, bounced on the floor, rolled into the corners, thundered against the cellar door. I don't believe you ever heard such a noise in all your life.
Mr. and Mrs. Breynton ran from one direction, Tom from another, Winnie from a third, and Patty, screaming, in fearful dishabille, from the attic, and the congress that assembled in that entry where sat Gypsy speechless on one stair, and Joy on another, the power fails me to describe.
But this was the end of that Christmas night.
It should be recorded that the five-dollar bill and the portfolio with purple roses on it were both forthcoming that day, and that Gypsy entirely forgot any difference between her own little gifts and Joy's. This was partly because she had somehow learned to be glad in the difference, if it pleased Joy; partly because of a certain look in her mother's eyes when she saw the picture-frame. Such a look made Gypsy happy for days together.
That Christmas was as merry as Christmas can be, but the best part of it all was the sight of Peace Maythorne's face as she lay twining the gorgeous worsteds over her thin fingers, the happy sunlight touching their colors of crimson, and royal purple, and orange, and woodland brown, just as kindly as it was touching the new Christmas jewels over which many another young girl in many another home sat laughing that morning.
But Gypsy long remembered—she remembers now with dim eyes and quivering smile—how Peace drew her face down softly on the pillow, pointing to the blue and golden words upon the wall, and said in a whisper that nobody else heard:
"That is best of all. Oh, Gypsy, when I woke up in the morning and found it!"