it was to make the evening thoroughly enjoyable
to them, invited them to adjourn to the
drawing-room. Then began the real pleasure
of the party. The gipsies were taken by
surprise; but while the men held back a
little, the women and children thronged, with
childish delight and curiosity, into the drawing-
room.

It was a large low room, such as are to be
found in ancient houses only, wainscotted from
floor to roof with polished panels of oak, dark
with age, which formed an excellent background
for throwing out the warm colouring of the
gipsy groups. Pictures, mostly fair, sunny,
and lightsome, and mirrors in glistening frames,
hung against the walls. There were flowers
about, and cases of butterflies; and there were
couches, ottomans, and chairs of light gay
colours. We left these seats to the gipsies,
and it was marvellous with what complete
dignity and elegance they occupied them. The
only trace that they were not " to the manner
born," was that one young girl, of fifteen or so,
slipped down after a while from her sofa to a
more familiar posture on the floor. They
amused themselves with the albums, knick-
knacks, old china, books of pictures, solitaire-
boards, and other ornaments of the room, with
a very close resemblance to the composure and
collectedness of those accustomed to such
things all their life. During the early part of
the evening they had exchanged remarks with
one another very freely in Romany, which
was, of course, incomprehensible to us; but
upon finding themselves drawing-room guests,
they put on an additional politeness of bearing.
I heard only one sentence spoken in Romany,
which was plainly a sharp rebuke, administered
by an elderly woman to a girl who was laughing
and talking somewhat too loudly.

The men were not one whit behind the
women in good breeding and courtesy. Those
who ventured into the drawing-room would
rise to offer their seat to a lady whom they
might see standing, just as any other gentlemen
would. One of them conversed fluently
with a lady at the piano concerning the
different operas, and asked for airs from La
Sonnambula and La Zingara. " Look at Annie
with that gipsy fellow!" said Annie's husband.
It was a droll sight. The gipsy, a dark
sunburnt man, was leaning over her with bent
head, his hand upon the music-board, ready
to turn the leaves, while she was looking up
into his face, smiling and talking as to any
other gentleman. He tried his skill when she
rose from the piano, and said, regretfully, that
their wandering life was altogether inconsistent
with pianos.

But most of the men kept in the dining-
room, and the large entrance-hall, which
contained many fine plants, mosses, and ferns.
They specially admired the brilliant scarlet of
the poynsittia pulcherrima, and asked to have
the name written down for them, in order that
the next child born in the camp might be called
after it! They were also much interested in
an antique cumbersome suit of armour; but
they considered it fair manners to talk Romany
in the hall, and did not make any observation
upon it in English.

One little living picture will always stay in
my memory. A young gipsy mother, with the
true Zingara beauty of face, a low olive-tinted
forehead, straight eyebrows, glittering eyes, and
black hair, with the metallic lustre of a raven's
wing upon it. Her dress, a kind of vest of a
creamy white, with a skirt of pure simple
primary red, neither scarlet nor crimson, of
some soft stuff which showed something of the
roundness and grace of her limbs. A pair of
long earrings fell beside her dusky neck. She
had small tawny hands covered with rings. And
upon her lap, with its shrewd, small, fortune-
telling face lying on her bosom, and its bead-like
eyes with very little look of babyhood in them,
nestled a child only seven months old, lightly
caressed by her bare arm. She was leaning
back against the dark panelling, weary with
sitting upright so long, but in an attitude of
wonderful grace and freedom, while the light
of the fire beside her, played about her and her
baby.

The most intelligent of the gipsies was a man
with the rather unromantic name of Smith. He
told me there was scarcely one among them who
could read or write. Most of the people in their
tribe were related in and out. They belonged to
the true gipsy race; not to the gipsies of Epping
Forest, who were a mongrel lot, from whom they
had been obliged to separate, on account of their
low and dirty habits. Only one man in their
camp had mixed blood, and the taint had come
in so long ago that nobody knew whence it
came. The real gipsies were to be known as
much by their customs and traditions as by
their genealogy. If a dog should lick any
plate or vessel, even a brass or copper pan, it
was immediately destroyed, or disposed of; no
true gipsy would use it again. They called
themselves protestants of the Church of
England, and were christened, married, and buried,
at the church nearest to which their camp
happened to be. " It was almost an unheard-of
thing," he said, "for a real gipsy to marry a
person of another race; but such things might
become more common by and by."

This man was a pleasant, straightforward-
looking, fair man, with nothing of the gipsy
caste of face. His voice was steady and grave,
and his manner exceedingly self-respectful. He
had three children with him, over whom he kept
a strict, but kindly oversight. His wife was at
home, taking care of the tent, he said. "When
it was time for the party to disperse, Smith
made a farewell speech to the Doctor, spoken
with much dignity and courtesy, assuring him
that his people had never spent an evening
with so much enjoyment. They took their
departure with no awkward hurry or rush, leaving
us with the impression that while entertaining
gipsies, we had been entertaining gentle-
people unawares.

It is but fair to add that the trust
reposed in them was not betrayed. Of the
many little articles of value, which lay about