or a
glance would gratify them, and this gratification their lively black eyes
expressed in the most unmistakable manner.

So we had the song, wild and wonderful like all of its kind, given with
that delightful _abandon_ which attains perfection only among gypsies. I
had enjoyed the singing in St. Petersburg, but there was a _laisser
aller_, a completely gay spirit, in this Christmas-Eve gypsy party in
Moscow which was much more "whirling away." For at Dorot the gypsies had
been on exhibition; here at Petrovka they were frolicking _en __famille_
with a favored guest,--a Romany rye from a far land to astonish and
delight,--and he took good care to let them feel that they were achieving
a splendid success, for I declared many times that it was _butsi shukar_,
or very beautiful. Then I called for tea and lemon, and after that the
gypsies sang for their own amusement, Miss Sarsha, as the incarnation of
fun and jollity, taking the lead, and making me join in. Then the crowd
made way, and in the space appeared a very pretty little girl, in the
graceful old gypsy Oriental dress. This child danced charmingly indeed,
in a style strikingly like that of the Almeh of Egypt, but without any of
the erotic expressions which abound in Eastern pantomime. This little
Romany girl was to me enchanting, being altogether unaffected and
graceful. It was evident that her dancing, like the singing of her elder
sisters, was not an art which had been drilled in by instruction. They
had come into it in infancy, and perfected themselves by such continual
practice that what they did was as natural as walking or talking. When
the dancing was over, I begged that the little girl would come to me,
and, kissing her tiny gypsy hand, I said, "_Spassibo tute kamli_, _eto hi
butsi shukar_" (Thank you, dear; that is very pretty), with which the
rest were evidently pleased. I had observed among the singers, at a
little distance, a very remarkable and rather handsome old woman,--a good
study for an artist,--and she, as I also noticed, had sung with a
powerful and clear voice. "She is our grandmother," said one of the
girls. Now, as every student of gypsies knows, the first thing to do in
England or Germany, on entering a tent-gypsy encampment, is to be polite
to "the old woman." Unless you can win her good opinion you had better
be gone. The Russian city Roms have apparently no such fancies. On the
road, however, life is patriarchal, and the grand