"Don't they have any real homes, Bessie?"
"No; except in their wagons. They live in them all the time, and they always manage to be where it's warm in the winter. They don't care where they go, you see. One place is just like another to them. They never have settled in towns. They've been wanderers for ages and ages, and they have their own language. They know all sorts of things about the weather, and they can find their way anywhere."
"How do you know so much about them, Bessie, if you never saw anything of them when you were in Hedgeville?"
"I read a book about them once. It's called 'Lavengro,' and it's by a man who's been dead a long time now; his name was Borrow."
"What a funny name! I never heard of that book, but I'll get it and read it when I get home. It tells about the gypsies, you say?"
"Yes. But I guess not about the gypsies as they are now, but more as they used to be. We're getting close, now. See all the babies! Aren't they cute and brown?"
Two or three parties, evidently from the hotel, were looking about the camp, but they paid little attention to the two Camp Fire Girls, evidently recognizing that they did not come from the hotel. The gypsies, however, always on the alert when they see a chance to make money by selling their wares or by telling fortunes, flocked about them, particularly the women. Bessie, fair haired and blond, they seemed disposed to neglect, but Bessie noticed that several of the men looked admiringly at Dolly, whose dark hair and eyes, though she was, of course, much fairer than their own women, seemed to appeal to them.
"I'd like to have my fortune told!" Dolly whispered.
"I think we'd better not do that, Dolly, really; and you remember you said you'd stay just for a minute."
"I don't see what harm it would do," Dolly pouted. But she gave in, nevertheless. They passed the door of the strangely decorated tent inside of which the secrets of the future were supposed to be revealed, and, followed by a curious pack of children, walked on to a wagon where a pretty girl, who seemed no older than themselves; but was probably, because the gypsy women grow old so much more quickly than American girls, actually younger, was sitting. She was sewing beads to a jacket, and she looked up with a bright smile as they approached.