"What will the lady give me if I tell her?" asked a hollow voice.
Mrs. Rollmaus started. At the corner of the house stood a large woman behind the flower-pots; from her shoulders hung a ragged cloak, her head was covered with a dark handkerchief, from under which two flashing eyes were fixed upon the ladies. Mrs. Rollmaus seized Ilse's arm, and cried out, terrified: "There is the fortune-teller herself, dear Ilse. I beg your advice; shall I ask her?"
The woman stepped cautiously from behind the plants, placed herself in front of Ilse, and raised her handkerchief. Ilse rose and looked annoyed on the sharp features of the withered face.
"The gipsy!" she exclaimed, stepping back.
"A tinkering woman!" exclaimed Mrs. Rollmaus, displeased; "the secret knowledge of such as she is, is connected with poultry-stealing, and worse things. First they steal and conceal, and then tell where the stolen property is."
The stranger paid no attention to the attack of Mrs. Rollmaus.
"You have hunted my people like the foxes in the wood; the frost has killed them; your watchmen have imprisoned them, and those that still live lie within walls, clinking their chains; I rove alone through the country. Do not think of what was done by the men that night, think only of what I predicted. Has it not come to pass? You look on the stone house opposite, and you see how slowly he comes along the gravel-path, to the room in which the naked boy hangs on the ceiling."
Ilse's countenance changed.
"I do not understand what you mean. Only one thing I see, that you are no stranger here."
"Many years have my feet glided through the snow," continued the gipsy, "since I passed through the doors of these black creatures."