This eBook was produced by David Widger
By Gilbert Parker
"What are you laughing at, Kitty? You cackle like a young hen with herfirst egg." So spoke Mrs. Tynan to her daughter, who alternately swungbackwards and forwards in a big rocking-chair, silently gazing into thedistant sky, or sat still and "cackled" as her mother had said.
A person of real observation and astuteness, however, would have noticedthat Kitty's laughter told a story which was not joy and gladness—neither good humour nor the abandonment of a luxurious nature.It was tinged with bitterness and had the smart of the nettle.
Her mother's question only made her laugh the more, and at last Mrs.Tynan stooped over her and said, "I could shake you, Kitty. You'd make asnail fidget, and I've got enough to do to keep my senses steady with allthe house-work—and now her in there!" She tossed a hand behind herfretfully.
Quick with love for her mother, as she always was, Kitty caught theother's trembling hand. "You've always had too much to do, mother;always been slaving for others. You've never had time to think whetheryou're happy or not, or whether you've got a problem—that's what peoplecall things, when they're got so much time on their hands that they makea play of their inside feelings and work it up till it sets them crazy."
Mrs. Tynan's mouth tightened and her brow clouded. "I've had my problemstoo, but I always made quick work of them. They never had a chance tooverlay me like a mother overlays her baby and kills it."
"Not 'like a mother overlays,' but 'as a mother overlays,'" returnedKitty with a queer note to her voice. "That's what they taught me atschool. The teacher was always picking us up on that kind of thing.I said a thing worse than that when Mrs. Crozier"—her fingers motionedtowards another room—"came to-day. I don't know what possessed me. Iwas off my trolley, I suppose, as John Sibley puts it. Well, when Mrs.James Shiel Gathorne Crozier said—oh, so sweetly and kindly—'You areMiss Tynan?' what do you think I replied? I said to her, 'The same'!"
Rather an acidly satisfied smile came to Mrs. Tynan's lips. "That waslike the Slatterly girls," she replied. "Your father would have said itwas the vernacular of the rail-head. He was a great man for odd words,but he knew always just what he wanted to say and he said it out. You'vegot his gift. You always say the right thing, and I don't know why youmade that break with her—of all people."
A meditative look came into Kitty's eyes. "Mr. Crozier says every onehas an imp that loves to tease us, and trip us up, and make us appearridiculous before those we don't want to have any advantage over us."
"I don't want Mrs. Crozier to have any advantage over you and me, I cantell you that. Things'll never be the same here again, Kitty dear, andwe've all got on so well; with him so considerate of every one, and agood friend always, and just one of us, and his sickness making him seemlike our own, and—"
"Oh, hush—will you hush, mother!" interposed Kitty sharply. "He'sgoing