which, however they may be perfected in other
countries, always seem to belong especially to England, and chief among
these is the turf. As a fresh start was made, as the spectators rushed
to the ropes, roaring with excitement, and the horses swept by amid
hurrahs, I could realize the sympathetic feeling which had been developed
in all present by ancient familiarity and many associations with such
scenes. Whatever the moral value of these may be, it is certain that
anything so racy with local color and so distinctly fixed in popular
affection as the _race_ will always appeal to the artist and the student
of national scenes.

I found Old Liz lounging with Old Dick, her husband, on the other side.
There was a canvas screen, eight feet high, stretched as a background to
stop the sticks hurled by the players at "coker-nuts," while the nuts
themselves, each resting on a stick five feet high, looked like
disconsolate and starved spectres, waiting to be cruelly treated. In
company with the old couple was a commanding-looking, eagle-eyed Romany
woman, in whom I at once recognized the remarkable gypsy spoken of by the
pickpocket.

"My name is Lee," she said, in answer to my greeting. "What is yours?"

"Leland."

"Yes, you have added land to the lee. You are luckier than I am. I'm a
Lee without land."

As she spoke she looked like an ideal Meg Merrilies, and I wished I had
her picture. It was very strange that I made the wish at that instant,
for just then she was within an ace of having it taken, and therefore
arose and went away to avoid it. An itinerant photographer, seeing me
talking with the gypsies, was attempting, though I knew it not, to take
the group. But the keen eye of the Romany saw it all, and she went her
way, because she was of the real old kind, who believe it is unlucky to
have their portraits taken. I used to think that this aversion was of
the same kind as that which many good men evince in a marked manner when
requested by the police to sit for their photographs for the rogues'
gallery. But here I did the gypsies great injustice; for they will allow
their likenesses to be taken if you will give them a shoe-string. That
this old superstition relative to the binding and loosing of ill-luck by
the shoe-string should exist in this connection is of itself curious. In
the earliest times the shoe-latchet brought luck, just as the shoe itself
did, especially when filled with corn or rice, and thrown