clay. His face was sharp, brown, and grizzly;
and his hands were nearly the colour of
treacle. His object was to solicit the place
left vacant by the absconded ticket-of-leave
man.

"Where have you lived before?" asked my
aunt. The visitor was silent.

"I don't care where it was," continued my
aunt, "so long as I know the truth: I'm
above all vulgar prejudices."

"Well, mum," he said, slowly, "I 'av'n't
lived anywheres to speak on, except in the
woods. I'm a gipsy king."

"A what?" exclaimed Miss Granite, in
astonishment.

"A gipsy king, mum," returned the
stranger, timidly, "an' a werry 'ard life it is,
mum!"

My aunt for some few minutes remained
silent. The stranger waited for her to take
up the conversation, and I felt very much
disposed to laugh.

"Is it possible," said Miss Granite, "that
one of your ancient, wandering race, can
think of settling down in the homes of
civilisation?"

"Yes, mum," replied the gipsy king,
"that's hexactly what it is."

"You are sincere," asked Miss Granite,
"in your desire to forsake your tribe?"

"They didn't do the thing as was right
by me," said the gipsy king, evasively ;
"they took a husurper; let 'em keep 'im."

"You have no wish to be any longer
considered a king?" asked Miss Granite, with
some tone of respect in her voice.

"Gipsy kings, mum, is all werry well to
talk about over a fire," he answered, "an' all
werry well to sing about over a pianner,"
he added, turning to me ; "but let 'em try it
in the winter, that's all!"

This last answer seemed satisfactory to
aunt, and it explained to me pretty clearly
the motives that had governed the stranger's
application for the place. The weather was
quite severe enough to drive every tribe of
real or professed gipsies into comfortable
winter quarters, except those who were
content to be petrified with rheumatism and
chilblains.

The gipsy king retired to the apartment
of his predecessor, the late ticket-of-leave man,
and in the course of an hour he acquired
the appearance of another individual. Two
buckets of water, several cakes of soap, and
the half-livery of the last servant (the best
suit he had left behind him), turned the
gipsy king into a very presentable groom—
even for a village.

"What name shall we call you by?" asked
Miss Granite, when he came into the sitting-room
for orders.

"Well, mum," he replied, "if it's all the
same to you, I should like to drop my real
name, which no one could make anythin' of,
an' answer to the call of Sam."

"We shall call you Samuel," said Miss
Granite, with some dignity, "we have no
nicknames here."

My own impression is, that the gipsy king
would, if properly treated, have sunk in
time into a steady, common-place servant.
The influence of regular habits, and regular
meals was beginning to tell upon his frame,
and while he lost his hungry sharpness of
face, he acquired a very respectable rotundity
of body. The proverbial restlessness and
activity of his race was certainly becoming
faded in him, for no one of the small kitchen
household was so often found asleep before
the fire. He was spoiled by his fellow-
servants. They told him wonderful stories of
his people that he had never heard before,
and they sang unto him the wild songs of his
native tribes (as published by the music-sellers).
They read to him (for he could not
read himself) a cheap penny history of
Bampfylde Moore Carew; and though he
openly called the wandering gentleman an
idiot and a fool, the poison sank into his soul.
They would not let him alone; but taught
him cheerful ballads of a gipsy's life, until
his not very powerful mind began to give way,
and he passed much of his time in dreaming
of the lost poetry of the woods and
fields.

He was a tolerably steady man, but a very
unsteady coachman. His knowledge of wild
horses might have been very great—as great
as he said it was—but for the first two
months he could scarcely turn our old mare,
Nancy, in the road, and he was quite
unequal to backing her up a heavy lane. Miss
Granite seemed perfectly satisfied with him,
and therefore no one else could complain;
and she always treated him with much
ceremony, in consideration of the title he had
given up on entering her service.

The winter, which was a very severe one,
passed by, and the spring came in very warm
and early. About the middle of March we
were sitting with open windows; the grass
was rich and full, and the birds were singing
in trees that were prematurely covered with
leaves. The songs which the gipsy king had
learnt of the servants he sang more loudly
and more frequently about the house and
stable-yard; and for the last two months he
had claimed his periodical holidays, and had
spent them, as far as I could learn, in
wandering about the country.

Miss Granite had a custom of going to
London twice a year—early in April and
early in October—to see her stockbroker, and
transact  a little city business. I never knew
what she did on these occasions, my duty
being simply to accompany her in the carriage,
to wait until she was ready to return, to dine
with her at a particular pastry-cook's, and
afterwards to ride with her home. The
coachman had always half-a-crown given
him, and permission to spend it at a
particularly old tavern near the Bank of England.

Of course these visits to the metropolis