"That's true enough," murmured the girl.

"You may be led, but you won't be drove,"
she continued.

"True," assented the girl.

"You've lost friends by slander."

"That's as true as I'm here to night!" said
the girl, with a look ten times more solemn
than if she had been in church.

"Your fortune will be rose by marriage,
not by service. There's a J. and a W. thinking
about you; which do you prefer?"

The girl simpered, but did not answer rashly;
it was a very momentous question.

"I think," she said, bashfully, " I should
prefer the J."

"I was just going to tell you," said the
fortune-teller, " that there's a ring bought and
paid for, as you know nothing about. You'll
be a married woman in six months, and have
three children, if you mind what you're about."

The girl's face grew radiant with delight, and
she rapturously exclaimed to her companion,
"It's every word true, Mary." Mary had been
to get change, two sixpences for a shilling, and
had just brushed past us, too intent and too
impatient to pay any regard to our eaves-dropping.
She now entered in her turn, with the
same shame-facedness concerning her rough
hands. But a dog inside the tent, that had
been snarling all the tune at our unwarrantable
conduct, becoming more uneasy, we decided it
was time to go; so we left the field, and the
dim tents dotted about it, and returned to the
house at which we were visiting, whose
occupant had passed sixty long years beneath the
same roof-tree; a strange contrast to the
vagrant tribe, possessing an abiding place
nowhere.

The same striking contrast was presented to
us still more forcibly a few days later, when
we were invited to spend an evening with the
gipsies in the oldest of all the residences in
the neighbourhood:—a pile of irregular buildings,
set up at different times, with ivied gables,
and lattice windows here and there, bearing
the name of the Old Hall. It has been a
homestead and dwelling-place through many
generations, and its thick walls had sheltered a
countless succession of guests, before the gipsies
were welcomed within its broad, low doorways.
It was known that they had received a
somewhat similar invitation elsewhere, but that
they had been deeply affronted by being
gathered into a public room, and mixed up, as
they said, with quite a low class of people, and
where they had had their tea served to them in
delft cups, and with leaden spoons. Their host
upon this occasion had assured them that they
should meet none but his personal friends, and
should be treated as any other of his visitors.
He was thoroughly anxious to gratify their
feelings, and minister to their aesthetic tastes.
The dining-hall—a handsome room, large
enough to seat fifty or sixty guests, and with
walls painted of a deep rich red—was decorated
with evergreens and pictures, and brilliantly
lighted up. The tables were adorned with
plate, and china, and flowers, but with a more
profuse display of provisions than usual;
needless as it proved. Some misgiving being felt as
to whether they might fail us at the last
moment, a servant was sent down to the camp to
ascertain the feeling of the gipsies. They were
found regaling themselves with tea, and bread
and meat; and when expostulated with, they
gave the superb reply, "We must not be
hungry when we are visiting. "We cannot fill
ourselves at the Doctor's expense."

They arrived at the Doctor's about half an
hour after the appointed time, as if they had
the fashionable dread of appearing too eager to
accept the hospitality offered to them. The men
were a band of strong healthy-looking fellows,
mostly dressed like homely country farmers; but
with very little of the awkwardness and
bashfulness of the lower farmer class. The women
retained a more picturesque style of apparel,
except in the instance of my unmarried friend
of twenty-seven, who was attired in a mauve
moiré antique gown, with a very long train, a
Paisley shawl, and a lace bonnet with flowers
in it. The rest of the women were less
magnificent, and more gipsy-like; but several of
them apologised for their dress, saying that
they had never thought they would be treated
like real gentlefolks. We mingled with them as
much as possible at the tea-table, but the gipsy
men kept apart at one end of the room, with a
little native wildness in their behaviour. As
might have been expected, their appetite was
somewhat dull, but they could not resist the
temptation of hot buttered cakes. The first who
made the discovery of these dainties proclaimed
it in a loud voice to some friend at a distance;
but that was the sole breach of etiquette which
came under my notice. In general they
conducted themselves with as much ease and self-
possession as if they were accustomed to
occupy chairs and tables at every meal; one
little boy alone asking to be put down upon
the floor to rest his legs. Opposite to me at
the tea-table, sat two young women, with low
broad intelligent foreheads, black eyes, very
brilliant, but with no softness or depth in
them, and purplish black hair falling
carelessly about the neck and face. Their hands,
like those of most of the other women, were
small and well-shaped, with long, taper fingers
laden with rings, and bearing little trace of
rough work. I counted eleven rings on the hand
of the girl opposite me; and upon another
occasion I asked her to let me look at them.
She was then en deshabille in her tent, kneeling
at a washing-tub, but she willingly took
off a yellow silk handkerchief which covered her
neck, and handed it to me with all her jewelry
tied in a tight knot at one corner, which had
been hidden in her bosom. They were of less
value than I had fancied, five of them being
memorial rings only.

When tea was over the Doctor had some
religious addresses administered to his strange
guests, and the gipsies with an honourable
exception or two, then looked as if they thought
it was time to go home. But as soon as this
duty was performed the Doctor, whose desire