"Well, 'Rora, my dear, where are you going this morning, that you are dressing in your best?" said Mrs. Gower, glancing at the gay purple riding-habit—for dress was a thing Gipsy seldom troubled herself about.
"Why, aunty, where would I be going; over to Spider's, of course."
"Oh, Gipsy, my dear, pray don't think of such a thing!" exclaimed the good woman, in a tone of alarm. "Your guardian will be dreadfully angry."
"Lor! aunty, I know that; there wouldn't be any fun in it if he wasn't," replied the elf.
"Oh, Aurora, child! you don't know what you're doing. Consider all he has done for you, and how ungrateful it is of you to disobey him in this manner. Now, he has set his heart on keeping you from Deep Dale (you know he never liked the doctor nor his family), and he will be terribly, frightfully angry if he finds you have disobeyed him. Ride over the hills, go out sailing or shooting, but do not go there."
Gipsy, who had been yawning fearfully during this address, now jerked herself away from Totty, and replied, impatiently:
"Well, let him get frightfully angry; I'll get 'frightfully angry' too, and so there will be a pair of us. Do you s'pose I'd miss seeing that dear, sweet, little girl again, just because Guardy will stamp, and fume, and roar, and scare all mankind into fits? Not I, indeed. Let him come on, who's afraid," and Gipsy threw herself into a stage attitude, and shouted the words in a voice that was quite imposing, coming as it did from so small a body.
"Oh, Gipsy, child! consider," again began Mrs. Gower.
"Oh, aunty, dear! I won't consider, never did; don't agree with my constitution, no how you can fix it. Archie told me one day when I was doing something he considered a crazy trick, to 'consider.' Well, for his sake, I tried to, and before ten minutes, aunty, I felt symptoms of falling into a decline. There now!"
"Oh, my dear! my dear! you are incorrigible," sighed Mrs. Gower; "but what would you do if your guardian some day turned you out of doors? You have no claim on him, and he might do it, you know, in a fit of anger."