"The money was not ready. One must act honourably, my daughter. I couldn't pick up my own grandson as if he'd been a stray hen, or a few clothes off the line. It took me five years to save those ten pounds. Five long miserable years."
"Miserable!" cried the gipsy girl, flinging her hair back from her eyes. "Miserable! Happy, you mean; too happy! It is when one can do nothing—"
She stopped, as if talking choked her, and the old woman, who seemed to pay little attention to any one but herself, went on,
"It was when it was all but saved, and I hangs about that country, making up my plans, that he comes to me himself, as I sits on the outskirts of a wood beyond the village, in no manner of disguisement, but just as I sits here."
"He came to you?" said Sybil.
"He comes to me, my daughter; dressed like any young nobleman of eight years old, but bareheaded and barefooted, having his cap in one hand, and his boots and stockings in the other.
"'Good-morning, old gipsy woman,' says he. 'I heard there was an old gipsy woman in the wood; so I came to see. Nurse said if I went about in the fields, by myself, the gipsies would steal me; but I told her I didn't care if they did, because it must be so nice to live in a wood, and sleep out of doors all night. When I grow up, I mean to be a wild man on a desert island, and dress in goats' skins. I sha'n't wear hats—I hate them; and I don't like shoes and stockings either. When I can get away from Nurse, I always take them off. I like to feel what I'm walking on, and in the wood I like to scuffle with my toes in the dead leaves. There's a quarry at the top of this wood, and I should so have liked to have thrown my shoes and stockings and my cap into it; but it vexes mother when I destroy my clothes, so I didn't, and I am carrying them.'
"Those were the very words he said, my daughter. He had a swiftness of tongue, for which I am myself famous, especially in fortune-telling; but he used the language of gentility, and a shortness of speech which you will observe among those who are accustomed to order what they want instead of asking for it. I had hard work to summon voice to reply to him, my daughter, and I cannot tell you, nor would you understand it if I could find the words, what were my feelings to hear him speak with that confidence of the young clergywoman as his mother.
"'A green welcome to the woods and the fields, my noble little gentleman,' says I. 'Be pleased to honour the poor tinker-woman by accepting the refreshment of a seat and a cup of tea.'
"'I mayn't eat or drink anything when I am visiting the poor people,' says he, 'Mother doesn't allow me. But thank you all the same, and please don't give me your stool, for I'd much rather sit on the grass; and, if you please, I should like you to tell me all about living in woods, and making fires, and hanging kettles on sticks, and going about the country and sleeping out of doors.'"