ng my son, who is of mixed blood (my
husband being in family, as in every other respect, undeserving of the
slightest mention).

"'Let me tell you your fortune, my noble little gentleman,' I says. 'The
lines of life are crossed early with those of travelling. Far will you
wander, and many things will you see. Stone houses and houses of brick
will not detain you. In the big house with the blue roof and the green
carpet were you born, and in the big house with the blue roof and the
green carpet will you die. The big house is delicately perfumed, my
noble little gentleman, especially in the month of May; at which time
there is also an abundance of music, and the singers sits overhead. Give
the old gipsy woman a sight of your comely feet, my little gentleman, by
the soles of which it is not difficult to see that you were born to
wander.'

"With this and similar jaw I entertained him, my daughter, and his eyes
looks up at me out of his face till I feels as if the dead had come
back; but he had a way with him besides which frightened me, for I knew
that it came from living with gentlefolk.

"'Are you mighty learned, my dear?' says I. 'Are you well instructed in
books and schooling?'

"'I can say the English History in verse,' he says, 'and I do compound
addition; and I know my Catechism, and lots of hymns. Would you like to
hear me?'

"'If you please, my little gentleman,' I says.

"'What shall I say?' he asks. 'I know all the English History, only I am
not always quite sure how the kings come; but if you know the kings and
can just give me the name, I know the verses quite well. And I know the
Catechism perfectly, but perhaps you don't know the questions without
the book. The hymns of course you don't want a book for, and I know them
best of all.'

"'I am not learned, myself,' says I, 'and I only know of two kings--the
king of England--who, for that matter, is a queen, and a very good
woman, they say, if one could come at her--and the king of the gipsies,
who is as big a blackguard as you could desire to know, and by no means
entitled to call himself king, though he gets a lot of money by it,
which he spends in the public-house. As regards the other thing, my
dear, I certainly does not know the questions without the book, nor,
indeed, should I know them with the book, which is neither here nor
there; so if the hymns require no learning on my part, I gives the
preference to them.'

"'I like _them_ best, myself,' he