"Why, Miss Gypsy!--why, really! You home again, my dear? Why, your father didn't expect you!" "I know it," said Gypsy. "Are they all well?" "Oh, yes, yes, all well,--but to give them such a surprise! It is so exactly like you, my dear." "I don't like Boston," said Gypsy, coloring. "I had a horrid time, and I came home very suddenly." "Don't like Boston? Well, you _are_ a remarkable young lady!" exclaimed Mr. Simms, and relapsed into silence, watching Gypsy's flushed and eager face, as people watch a light coming back into a dark room. "We have missed you up at the store, my dear," he said, after a while. "Have you? I'm glad. Oh! who's that with Miss Melville out walking under the elm-trees?" "I guess it's Mr. Hallam." "Oh, to be sure," interrupted Gypsy, looking very bright. "I see,--Mr. Guy Hallam. Now I guess I know why she wouldn't teach school!" "They are to be married in the spring," said Mr. Simms. "Just think!" said Gypsy. "How funny! Now she'll have to stay at home and keep house all day,--I think she's real silly, don't you?" Of all the many remarkable things that Miss Gypsy had ever said, Mr. Simms thought this capped the climax. Now the coach had rattled up the hill, and lumbered round the corner, and there was the old house, looking quiet and pleasant and dear, in the morning sunlight. Gypsy was so excited that she could not sit still, and kept Mr. Simms in a fever of anxiety, for fear she would tumble out of the coach windows. It seemed to her as if she had been gone a year, instead of just one week. She sprang down the carriage-steps at a bound, and ran into the house. Her mother was out in the kitchen helping Patty about the dinner. She heard such a singing and shouting as no one had made in the house since Gypsy went away, and hurried out into the front entry to see what had happened. Tom ran in from the garden, and Winnie slid down on the banisters, and Mr. Breynton was just coming up the yard, and Patty put her head in at the entry door, wiping her hands on her apron, and everybody must be kissed all round, and for a few minutes there was such a bustle, that Gypsy could hardly hear herself speak. "What has brought you home so soon?" asked her mother, then. "We didn't look for you for a week yet." "Oh, I hate Boston!" cried Gypsy, pulling off her things. "I didn't like anything but the Museum and Bunker Hill; and Joy wore silk dresses, and wouldn't let me look in the shop-windows, 'n I took a poor, little beggar-girl home, and you can't run round any, and Aunt Miranda told me she'd tell you, and I hate it, and she's just as cross as a bear!" "Your aunt cross!" said her mother, who could make neither beginning nor end of Gypsy's excited story. "I guess she is," said Gypsy, with an emphasis. "Oh, I _am_ so glad to get home. Where's the kitty, and how's Peace Maythorne and everybody, and Winnie has a new jacket, hasn't he?"