ty, one was
not to be found. I stayed most of the time under the "blanket" of the
old man, Thomas Lee, who is a jolly old fellow about sixty, and the
father of eleven young children. He was evidently the life of the camp,
for they all flock round his tent to hear his interesting snatches of
song and story.

He had heard that Her Majesty had sent 50 pounds to assist you in getting
the children educated, and just before I left I was pleased to hear him
give vent to his feelings with the rough but patriotic speech that "She
was a rare good woman, and a Queen of the right sort."

It must not be inferred from what I have said, or shall say, that there
are no good Gipsies among them. Here and there are females to be found
ready at all hours and on all occasions to do good both to the souls and
bodies of Gipsies and house-dwellers as they travel with their basket
from door to door hawking their wares; and to illustrate the truth of
this I cannot do better than refer to the case of the good and
kind-hearted Mrs. Simpson, who is generally located with her husband and
some grand-children in her van in the neighbourhood near Notting Hill, on
the outskirts of London. Mrs. Simpson tells me that she is not a
thorough Gipsy, only a half one. Her father was one of the rare old
Gipsy family of Lees, of Norfolk, and her mother was a Gorgio or Gentile,
who preferred following the "witching eye" and "black locks" to the rag
and stick hovel--or, to be more aristocratic, "the tent"--whose roof and
sides consisted of sticks and canvas, with an opening in the roof to
serve as a chimney, through which the smoke arising from the hearth-stick
fire could pass, excepting that which settled on the hands and face.
Grass, green, decayed, or otherwise, to serve as a carpet, the brown
trampled turf taking the place of mosaic and encaustic tile pavements,
straw instead of a feather-bed, and a soap-box, tea-chest, and like
things doing duty as drawing-room furniture. Mrs. Simpson, when quite a
child, was always reckoned most clever in the art of deception, telling
lies and fortunes out of a small black Testament, of which she could not
read a sentence or tell a letter; sometimes reading the planets of silly
geese, simpletons, and fools out of it when it was upside down, and when
detected she was always ready with a plausible excuse, which they, with
open mouths, always swallowed as Gospel; and for more than twenty-five
years she kept herself and fa