hed to know all about us. All
talked, indeed, and that quite rapidly, and she said that I was the
first Romany lady {279} she had ever seen. I said to her that in
society are many gypsy ladies to be found, but that the wretched
Gentiles do not know it.

She said that my sister looked like Lusha Cooper, and showed her dark
blood more than I do. "You don't favor the Coopers, my dearie. You
say your mother married a Smith. Was that the Smith who kept a
dancing and boxing place near London Bridge? Were you born in
England?" I told the old mother all I knew about myself and my
relations. You know that no Gorgios are so long-winded on
genealogies as old mothers in Rom. When people don't write them down
in their family Bibles, they carry them, extended, in their heads.
_Que la main droit perd recueille la gauche_.

"Do you know any of the ---'s?" said M. "You look like ---'s wife."
"No; she's too pale," said A. "It's something in the look of her,"
said M.

Reflect, my brother. You know that --- was the woman who "cleaned
out" a man named --- of a very large sum {280} by "dukkeripen" and
"dudikabin." "When she was arrested, the justice made her dress like
any Gorgio, and placed her among twelve Gentile women. The man who
had been robbed was to point out who among them had stolen his money.
When she came into the room, he went at once to her, and said, 'I
know her by her long skinny fingers and handsome face.' She was
imprisoned for two years, but the Gorgio never recovered his money."

What time we reasoned thus, the door undid, and three men entered.
After their greetings, M. cried, "Come to table; bring your chairs
with you!" "Mrs. Lee, why didn't you bring your husband?" "Because
I am not married." "Lord! Britannia! Why, M. told me that you
were." "Ah, M. didn't fortune right when she fortuned that. She's a
fool," quoth I. And then we all laughed like children. The food was
good: chickens and ham and fried potatoes, with a glass of sound ale.
We were gay as flies in summer, in the real old Romany way. 'T was
"Britannia" here, "Britannia" there, as in the merry days when we
were young. Little do I believe in Dante's words,--

"Nessun maggior dolore,
Che ricordarsi dei tempi felici."

"There is no greater grief
Than to remember by-gone happy day