e of probabilities! If I could but see the way of truth, I
would follow it, if necessary, upon hands and knees; on that I was
determined; but I could not see it. Feeling my brain begin to turn
round, I resolved to think of something else; and forthwith began to
think of what had passed between Ursula and myself in our discourse
beneath the hedge.

I mused deeply on what she had told me as to the virtue of the females of
her race. How singular that virtue must be which was kept pure and
immaculate by the possessor, whilst indulging in habits of falsehood and
dishonesty. I had always thought the gypsy females extraordinary beings.
I had often wondered at them, their dress, their manner of speaking, and,
not least, at their names; but, until the present day, I had been
unacquainted with the most extraordinary point connected with them. How
came they possessed of this extraordinary virtue? was it because they
were thievish? I remembered that an ancient thief-taker, who had retired
from his useful calling, and who frequently visited the office of my
master at law, the respectable S . . ., who had the management of his
property--I remembered to have heard this worthy, with whom I
occasionally held discourse, philosophic and profound, when he and I
chanced to be alone together in the office, say that all first-rate
thieves were sober, and of well-regulated morals, their bodily passions
being kept in abeyance by their love of gain; but this axiom could
scarcely hold good with respect to these women--however thievish they
might be, they did care for something besides gain: they cared for their
husbands. If they did thieve, they merely thieved for their husbands;
and though, perhaps, some of them were vain, they merely prized their
beauty because it gave them favour in the eyes of their husbands.
Whatever the husbands were--and Jasper had almost insinuated that the
males occasionally allowed themselves some latitude--they appeared to be
as faithful to their husbands as the ancient Roman matrons were to
theirs. Roman matrons! and, after all, might not these be in reality
Roman matrons? They called themselves Romans; might not they be the
descendants of the old Roman matrons? Might not they be of the same
blood as Lucretia? And were not many of their strange names--Lucretia
amongst the rest--handed down to them from old Rome? It is true their
language was not that of old Rome; it was not, however, altogether
different f