Yet even her sadness held a strange, poignant element of bliss. It struck her, oddly, that she was almost enjoying her week of punishment--that she WAS enjoying it. Why was she enjoying it, since, when mother first banned athletic pursuits, she had felt like a martyr? It was queer. She pondered the mysterious complexity of her nature.
There passed two more days of this inexplicable content. Then came the thunder-storm. It was, perhaps, the thunder-storm that really deserves the blame for Missy's climactic athletic catastrophe. No lightning-bolt struck, yet that thunder-storm indubitably played its part in Missy's athletic destiny. It was the causation of renewed turmoil after time of peace.
Tess had telephoned that morning and asked Missy to accompany her to the Library. But Missy had to practice. In her heart she didn't really care to go, for, after her stint was finished, she was contemplating some new improvisings. However, the morning didn't go well. It was close and sultry and, though she tried to make her fingers march and trot and gallop as the exercises dictated, something in the oppressive air set her nerves to tingling. Besides it grew so dark she couldn't see the notes distinctly. Finally she abandoned her lesson; but even improvising failed of its wonted charm. Her fingers kept striking the wrong keys. Then a sudden, ear-splitting thunder-clap hurled her onto a shrieking discord.
She jumped up from the piano; she was horribly afraid of thunder-storms--mother wouldn't mind if she stopped till the storm was over. She longed to go and sit close to mother, to feel the protection of her presence; but, despite the general softening of her mood, she had maintained a certain stiffness toward the family. So she crouched on a sofa in the darkest corner of the room, hiding her eyes, stopping her ears.
Then a sudden thought brought her bolt upright. Gypsy! Tess had said Gypsy was afraid of thunder-storms--awfully afraid. And Gypsy was all alone in that big, gloomy barn--Tess blocks away at the Library.
She tried to hide amongst the cushions again, but visions of Gypsy, with her bright inquisitive eyes, her funny little petulances, her endearing cajoleries, kept rising before her. She felt a stab of remorse; that she could have let even the delights of reading and improvising compensate for separation from such a darling pony. She had been selfish, selfcentred. And now Gypsy was alone in that old barn, trembling and neighing...