"I--I don"t know where n.o.body is," sobbed the child.
"Have you lost your way? Where do you live?" asked Gypsy, with great, pitying eyes. Gypsy could never bear to see anybody cry; and then the little creature was so ragged and thin.
"I live there," said the child, pointing vaguely down the street.
"Mother"s to home there somewhars."
"I"ll go with you and find your mother," said Gypsy; and taking the child"s hand, she started off in her usual impulsive fashion, without a thought beyond her pity.
"Gypsy! Gypsy Breynton!" called Joy. "The police will take her home--you mustn"t!"
But Gypsy did not hear, and Joy, shocked and indignant, went home and left her.
In about an hour Gypsy came back, flushed and panting with her haste. Joy, in speechless amazement, had looked from the window and seen her _running_ across the Common.
Her aunt met her on the stairs with a face like a thunder-cloud.
"Why, Gypsy Breynton, I am ashamed of you! How _could_ you do such a thing as to go off with a beggar, and _take hold of her hand_ right there in Summer Street, and go n.o.body knows where, alone, into those terrible Irish streets! It was a _dreadful_ thing to do, and I should think you would have known better, and I really think I must write to your mother about it immediately!"
Gypsy stood for a moment, motionless with astonishment. Then, without saying a word, she pa.s.sed her aunt quickly on the stairs, and ran up to her room. Her face was very white. If she had been at home she would have broken forth in a torrent of angry words.
Kate, the house-maid, was sweeping the entry.
"Did you know there was going to be another great dinner to-day, miss?"
she said, as Gypsy pa.s.sed her.
Gypsy went into her room, and locked her door. Another of those terrible dinner-companies, and her aunt so angry at her! It was too much--she could not bear it! She looked about the room twice, pa.s.sed her hand over her forehead, and her face flushed quickly.
One of Gypsy"s sudden and often perilous resolutions was made.
CHAPTER XII
NO PLACE LIKE HOME
No one came to the room. After a while the front door opened and shut, and she saw, from the window, that her aunt and Joy were going out. She then remembered that she had heard them say they had some calls to make at that hour. Her uncle was at the store, and no one was now in the house besides herself, but the servants.
"All right," she said, half aloud; "I couldn"t have fixed it better."
For half an hour she stayed in her room with the door locked, and any one listening outside could have heard her moving briskly about, opening drawers and shutting closet doors. Then she came down stairs and went out.
She was gone just about long enough to have been to the nearest hack-stand and back again. A few minutes after she returned, the door-bell rang.
"I"ll go," she called to Kate; "it"s a man I sent here on an errand, and I shall have to see him."
"Very well, miss," said Kate, and went singing down the back-stairs with her broom.
"This way," said Gypsy, opening the door. She led the way to her room, and the man who followed her shouldered her trunk with one hand, and carried it out to a carriage which stood at the door. Gypsy went into her aunt"s room and left a little note on the table where it would be easily seen, threw her veil over her face, felt of her purse to be sure it was safe in her pocket, and ran hastily down stairs after him, and into the carriage.
The man strapped on her trunk, slammed the door upon her, and, mounting his box, drove rapidly away. Kate, who happened to be looking out of one of the bas.e.m.e.nt windows, saw the carriage, but did not notice the trunk.
She supposed Gypsy was riding somewhere to meet her aunt or uncle, and went on with her dusting.
The carriage stopped at the Fitchburg depot, and Gypsy paid her fare and went into the ladies" room. The coachman, who seemed to be an accommodating man, though a little curious, brought her a check, and hoped she"d get along comfortable; it was a pretty long journey for such a young creetur to take alone.
Gypsy thanked him, and going up to the ticket-master, asked him something in a low tone.
"In just an hour!" said the ticket-master, in a loud, business-like voice.
"_An hour!_ So long as that?"
"Yes, ma"am."
Gypsy drew her veil very closely about her face, and sat down in the darkest corner she could find. She seemed to be very much afraid of being recognized; for she shrank from every new-comer, and started every time the door opened.
"Train for Fitchburg, Rutland, Burlington!" shouted a voice, at last, and the words were drowned in the noise of hurrying feet.
Gypsy took a seat in the rear car, by the door, which was open, so that she was partially concealed from the view of the pa.s.sengers. Just before the train started, a tall, whiskered gentleman walked slowly through the car, scanning the faces on each side of him.
"You haven"t seen a little girl here, dressed in drab, with black eyes and red cheeks, have you?" he asked, stopping just in front of Gypsy.
Several of the pa.s.sengers shook their heads, and one old lady piped out on a very high key,--
"No, sir, I hain"t!"
The gentleman pa.s.sed out, and shut the door. Gypsy held her breath. It was her uncle.
He looked troubled and anxious. Gypsy"s cheeks flushed,--a sudden impulse came over her to call him back,--she started and threw open the window, but the engine-bell rang, the train puffed slowly off, and her uncle disappeared in the crowd.
As she was whirled rapidly along through wharves and shipping and lumber, away from the roar of the city, and out where woods and green fields lined the way, she began, for the first time, to think what she was doing, and to wonder if she were doing right. Her anger at her aunt, and the utter disappointment and homesickness of her Boston visit, had swept away, for a few moments, all her power of reasoning. To get home, to see her mother,--to hide her head on her shoulder and cry,--this was the one thought that had turned itself over and over in her mind, on that quick ride from Beacon Street, and in that hour spent in the dark corner of the depot. Here she was, running like a thief from her uncle"s house, without a word of good-by or thanks for his hospitality, with no message to tell him where she had gone but that note, hastily written in the first flush of her hurt and angry feelings. And the hurrying train was whirling her over hill and valley faster and farther. To go back was impossible, go on she must. What had she done?
She began now, too, to wonder where she should spend the night. The train went only as far as Rutland, and it would be late and dark when she reached the town--far too late for a little girl to be travelling alone, and to spend a night in a strange hotel, in a strange place. What should she do?
As the afternoon pa.s.sed, and the twilight fell, and the lamps were lighted, and people hurried out at way-stations to safe and waiting homes, her loneliness and anxiety increased. Just before entering Rutland, a young man, dressed in a dandyish manner, and partially intoxicated, entered the car, and took the empty seat by Gypsy. She did not like his looks, and moved away slightly, turning to look out of the window.
"No offense, I hope?" said the man, with a foolish smile; "the car was full."
Gypsy made no reply.
"Travelling far?" he said, a moment after.
"To Rutland, sir," said Gypsy, feeling very uneasy, as she perceived the odor of rum, and wishing he would not talk to her.
"Friends there?" said the man again.
"N--no, sir," said Gypsy, reluctantly. "I am going to the hotel."
"Stranger in town? What hotel do you go to?"