Borrow, in that hail-fellow-well-met
tone of his which he reserved for the Romanies--a tone which no Romany
could ever resist. And he took it gently from the woman's lips. "Don't
smoke any more till I come to the camp and see the chavo again."

The woman looked very angry at first.

"He be's a good friend to the Romanies," said the girl in an appeasing
tone.

"That's true," said the woman, "but he's no business to take my pipe out
o' my mouth for all that."

She soon began to smile again, however, and let Borrow retain the pipe.
Borrow and his friend then moved away towards the dusty high-road leading
to the camp, and were joined by the young girl. Perpinia remained,
keeping guard over the magpie that was to bring luck to the sinking
child.

It was determined now that the young girl was the very person to be used
as the test-critic of the Romany mind upon Arnold's poem, for she was
exceptionally intelligent. So instead of going to the camp the oddly
assorted little party of three struck across the ferns, gorse, and
heather towards "Kingfisher brook," and when they reached it they sat
down on a fallen tree.

Nothing delights a gypsy girl so much as to listen to a story either told
or read to her, and when Borrow's friend pulled his book from his pocket
the gypsy girl began to clap her hands. Her anticipation of enjoyment
sent over her face a warm glow, and I can assure Dr. Jessopp that Borrow
(notwithstanding that his admiration of women was confined as a rule to
blondes of the Isopel Berners type) seemed as much struck by her beauty
as ever the Doctor could be himself. To say the truth, he frequently
talked of it afterwards. Her complexion, though darker than an English
girl's, was rather lighter than any ordinary gypsy's. Her eyes were of
an indescribable hue, but an artist who has since then painted her
portrait for Borrow's friend described it as a mingling of pansy-purple
and dark tawny. The pupils were so large that, being set in the somewhat
almond-shaped and long-eyelashed lids of her race, they were partly
curtained both above and below, and this had the peculiar effect of
making the eyes seem always a little contracted and just about to smile.
The great size and deep richness of the eyes made the straight little
nose seem smaller than it really was, they also lessened the apparent
size of the mouth, which, red as a rosebud, looked quite small until she
laughed when the white teeth made quite a w