ad shown me what a
wonderful woman she was, how full of ideas the most original and the
most wild. The moment a Gypsy-woman has been taught to write there
comes upon her a passion for letter-writing.

Nothing could be more striking than the contrast between the
illiterate locutions and the eccentric orthography of Fenella's
letters and the subtle remarks and speculations upon the symbols of
nature.--the dukkeripen of the woods, the streams, the stars, and the
winds. But when I came to analyse the theories of man's place in
nature expressed in the ignorant language of this Romany heathen,
they seemed to me only another mode of expressing the mysticism of
the religious enthusiast Wilderspin, the more learned and
philosophic mysticism of my father, and the views of D'Arcy, the
dreamy painter.

As I rode back to London, I said to myself, 'What change has come
over me? What power has been gradually sapping my manhood? Why do I,
who was so self-reliant, long now so passionately for a friend to
whom to unburthen my soul--one who could give me a sympathy as deep
and true as that I got from Sinfi Lovell, and yet the sympathy of a
mind unclouded by ignorant superstitions?'

With the exception of D'Arcy, whose advice as to the disposal of the
cross had proclaimed him to be as superstitious as Sinfi herself, not
a single friend had I in all London. Indeed, besides Lord Sleaford (a
tall, burly man with the springy movement of a prize-tighter, with
blue-grey eyes, thick, close-cropped hair, and a flaxen moustache,
who had lately struck up a friendship with my mother) I had not even
an acquaintance. Cyril Aylwin, whom I had not seen since we parted in
Wales, was now on the Continent with Wilderspin. Strange as it may
seem, I looked forward with eagerness to the return of this
light-hearted jester. Cyril's sagacity and knowledge of the world had
impressed me in Wales; but his cynical attitude, whether genuine or
assumed, towards subjects connected with deep passion, had prevented
my confiding in him. He must, I knew, have gathered from Sinfi, and
from other sources, that I was mourning the loss of a Welsh girl in
humble life; but during our very brief intercourse in Wales neither
of us had mentioned the matter to the other. Now, however, in my
present dire strait I longed to call in the aid of his penetrative
mind.

VIII

ISIS AS HUMOURIST

I

On reaching London I resumed my wanderings through the London
streets. Bitt