There's gypsies always live in tents, and I
suppose show-people always expect to travel with shows. I don't know
anything about it. But I do know when that child came to me she'd
been dosed nearly to death with laudanum, or some sleepin' drug, and
didn't really come to her senses till after her spasm."
The woman cast a piteous expression at her judge.
"She's so nervous, poor pet! Perhaps I'm in the 'abit of giving her
too much. But she lives in terror of the company we 'ave to associate
with, and I can't see her nerves be racked."
"Thee ought to stop such wrong doings," pronounced William
Sebastian, laying his palm decidedly on the table. "Set theeself to
some honest work and put the child to school. Her face is a rebuke to
us that likes to feel at peace."
The woman glanced resentfully at him.
"The child is gifted," she maintained. "I'm going to make a hartist
of her."
She smoothed Carrie's wan hands, and, as if noticing her borrowed
clothing for the first time, looked about the room for the tinsel and
gauze.
[Illustration: THE CHILD LAY QUITE DOCILE AND SUBMISSIVE.]
"The things she had on her when she come to us," said Grandma
Padgett, "were literally gone to nothing.
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