"Gold-gold!" said the idiot, looking on the gravelwalk with a strange, puzzling, mad, serious look—“ the devils fed me on it for days-hard, heavy food-makes the heart cold-bad digestion-heavy dreams-murder, fire, and bloodshed-cut-throats, poisoning, hanging, all night. They put me in a prison of gold-yellow figures came with brass teeth, and grinned at me; the sky, the air, the roof, the darkness, was all a dreariment of gold."

The conversation was here interrupted by an approaching sound as of a great multitude, and a few moments after a long caravan of gipsies approached, bearing with them all the equipage for a large summer encampment-for it was the great annual meeting of the tribe. Carts, waggons, horses, donkeys, dogs, children in panniers, infants on the backs of their swarthy and dark-haired mothers, with suntanned urchins clinging to the corners of their tattered cloaks; old crones, whose heads the snow of eighty winters had bleached; grim, hard-featured, forbidding-looking men, who appeared no older than they had done thirty years before; young, handsome, olive-hued women, moving along with a graceful and natural motion, such as no art could give, and such forms as an artist would have selected had he been called upon to model Egypt's voluptuous Cleopatra ; fine, tall, sinewy, broad-chested, and manly-moulded fellows, casts of whom would have been the pride of an artist's studio. Nature's own forest-born sons; rangers of hill and wood, and heath and wold; the free, unfettered children of the sun, bound and united together by their own mysterious language, and their own ancient laws; and looking upon all the rest of mankind as aliens in blood, creed, and cust tom. Wild Arabs, who settle down in every corner of merry England, as if its green and ancient pastures belonged to such dusky children of the desert.

Onward they went, kettles and camp-poles rattling

against each other; snatches of song chiming in with deep oaths, and heavy blows dealt on the lagging and over-jaded animals; while many a wild woodland tune, whistled with considerable taste, blended sweetly with the softer voices of the children. Onward they went, women in men's coats, and boys half-buried in their fathers' cast-off garments, with the buttons of the huge velvet knee-breeches knocking against their brown and naked ankles: there trudged one, buried in a large ample waistcoat, the pockets of which extended below its knees, and wearing no other drapery: girls enveloped in the skirt of some old gown, hanging loosely around the neck and shoulders, while their arms were thrust naked through the former pocket-holes, as if to show their contempt for sleeves: some were bare-headed; others with their dark curly hair hidden in large old hats, with here and there a straggling lock peeping through the broken crown, while many a brim was pared off close to the body, as if they hated the shadow which intervened between their bronzed faces and the sunshine of heaven. Onward they went, as merry a group as ever prigged a prancer, clyed a lag of duds, binged in a bousing ken, maundered upon the pad, carried a kenching mort, or bilked a queer cuffin; for their heads were never troubled with the thoughts of paying either rent or taxes.

Old Lady Morton stood motionless as the long train passed, watching narrowly every face with her cold, grey, fixed eye, until the last cart rolled by, followed by a group of loiterers, amongst whom was an aged gipsy-woman. She halted for a moment, looked hard at the old lady of the Manor-house, exchanged a few cant terms with her tribe, then, drawing a circle with her forefinger around the palm of her hand, and pressing the centre with her nail, she said, "I am ready-he is here."

"Where? where ?" exclaimed Lady Morton, her limbs

shaking with excitement as she spoke, while her voice sounded harsh, husky, and unnatural; "where? where ?let me see him first; I must know it is him! I have lived too long to be cheated now; let me see him, feel him, touch him, hear from his own lips that he has not been changed for another! I have the money here, ready, all in goldgood, heavenly gold!" and Lady Morton grasped the side of her heavy pocket as she spoke; while more than one gipsy darted his keen dark eye in the same direction, as if regretting that he could not rob her with a look; and their glances seemed to tighten the old lady's grasp on her pocket.

"Fool!" muttered the aged gipsy-woman to herself; then beckoning to a tall, athletic young man, whose hair was black as the plumes of a raven, and his countenance the colour of copper, she spoke to him in the language of her tribe, and, giving a nod of assent, he sprung forward with giant strides, and in a few moments returned, leading a shaggy pony, on which a beautiful boy was seated, dressed in neat attire, which had either been stolen or purchased for the occasion.

The Lady Ellen, who had just returned from her evening walk in the neighbouring wood, now stood by the side of Amy, and with a throbbing heart gazed in silence upon this strange scene.

"This is the child," said the old gipsy-woman, baring his neck as she spoke, and showing the whiteness of his shoulder, which formed a strong contrast to the sun-stained hue of his healthy cheek; "here is the mole upon his right shoulder, the locket that has never been removed from his neck, and there," added she, looking fixedly at the Lady Ellen, whose tears fell like the summer rain, drop by drop, "there stands his mother, whom I have not before seen, but never did the sun shine on two faces more alike."

The Lady Ellen looked at the boy for a moment, and during that brief interval she saw her own features reflected back—the same outline as her own then bore-the living image of what she herself was in childhood,—and rushing forward, she threw her arms around him, and would have fallen, had not Mark Middleton stepped forward to her support.

"Ah! there he sits!" exclaimed the gipsy-woman in triumph, "an honour to his old gipsy nurse— -look at him! he walked forth in the early morning, when the healthy breeze and the stark-naked sunshine came down to play together upon the heath; with my own hands I washed him in the forest brook, then let him run to dry himself in the wind. Bless his sweet tongue! he used to swear at me the moment he opened his innocent eyes; and when I kissed him, he called me all the old thieves he could think of; there never was a child with such a tongue! And oh! it's delightful to hear him lie! for I never saw one of his age stick to a thing as he does; and as for thieving-bless him! there is not a child in the whole camp worthy to be named on the same day with him! My husband said, if he lived long enough, he would be king of the gipsies. He could drink like a man when he was three years old; and as to smoking-heaven love him! let me hide my tobaccobox wherever I would, he was sure to steal it! Let me kiss you once more, my dear darling," and the old woman approached him as she spoke.

"Go to

, you

"What the hopeful youth said was full of awful alliteration and rounded periods-the very poetry of swearing; not like your common, hackneyed, every-day oaths, but such as sounded like the finish of a fine old Alexandrine by Spenser, if we can but imagine that beautiful poet once "rapping out" lustily, and imping his glorious wings into the ample heaven of Billingsgate. He

smacked the old woman's face when she had kissed him, and, pulling out a short, black pipe from his jacket pocket, bade her fetch him a light, and "be hanged to her."

Old Lady Morton paid the gipsy the final sum which they had bargained for, when the boy was to be restored, and between every gold piece she dropped into her hard, brown hand, she kept up a running commentary-"Quite sure it's the right child?-six-(a large sum)-seven-(I may never get it back)—eight—(if you have deceived me)→→→ nine (I'll have you transported)-ten-(and then hung)— that's all!"

The gipsy-woman had her attention drawn too much to the contents of the heavy leathern bag, which the old lady had returned into her large, strong pocket, to pay any regard to what she said. As for the rest, they were occupied in watching the actions of the wild boy. "Fear not, my lady," exclaimed old Mark Middleton, stooping down, and addressing the Lady Ellen; "many a wild flower has before now been transplanted, which has become the beauty and ornament of the garden; leave him to my care and Amy's for a few months, and you will soon see that evil habits have not yet reached his heart."

"God grant that it may be so," answered the Lady Ellen, sobbing bitterly as she spoke; "my heart pleads for him, and tells me that he is its own child-alas! that he is so-better were it a thousand times that he were dead, as I believed him to be, while he was yet young and innocent. Oh, God! forgive them who have made him what he now is! But her," added she, looking at old Lady Morton, "I can never forgive."

"Dear Ellen," said Amy, though I am so young, I know all that you feel; leave him with me, and I will be a mother to him; my conduct shall make him forget the evil which he has been taught, and God in His goodness will