put her hand to anything. But those twin cajolers of
the female heart, Dignity and Laziness, made her so utterly wretched,
that she returned to her old habits of work, only she combined with it
the sweets of domination.

Sally came in and said, "It's an old gypsy, which he have brought you
this."

Mrs. Meyrick instantly wiped the soapsuds from her brown but shapely
arms, and, whipping a wet hand under her apron, took the note just as
Sally had. It contained these words only:

"NURSE--The old Romance will tell you all about me.

"REGINALD."

She had no sooner read it than she took her sleeves down, and whipped
her shawl off a peg and put it on, and took off her apron--and all for
an old gypsy. No stranger must take her for anything but a lady.

Thus embellished in a turn of the hand, she went hastily to the door.

She and the gypsy both started at sight of each other, and Mrs. Meyrick
screamed.

"Why, what brings you here, old man?" said she, panting. The gypsy
answered with oily sweetness, "The little gentleman sent me, my dear.
Why, you look like a queen."

"Hush!" said Mrs. Meyrick.--"Come in here."

She made the old gypsy sit down, and she sat close to him.

"Speak low, daddy," said she, "and tell me all about my boy, my
beautiful boy."

The old gypsy told Mrs. Meyrick the wrongs of Reginald that had driven
him to this; and she fell to crying and lamenting, and inveighing
against all concerned--schoolmaster, Sir Charles, Lady Bassett, and the
gypsies. Them the old man defended, and assured her the young gentleman
was in good hands, and would be made a little king of, all the more
that Keturah had told them there was gypsy blood in him.

Mrs. Meyrick resented this loudly, and then returned to her grief.

When she had indulged that grief for a long time, she felt a natural
desire to quarrel with somebody, and she actually put on her bonnet,
and was going to the Hall to give Lady Bassett a bit of her mind, for
she said that lady had never shown the feelings of a woman for the
lamb.

But she thought better of it, and postponed the visit. "I shall be sure
to say something I shall be sorry for after," said she; so she sat down
again, and returned to her grief.

Nor could she ever shake it off as thoroughly as she had done any other
trouble in her life.

Months after this, she said to Sally, with a burst of tears, "I never
nursed but one, and I shall never nurse another; and now he is acros