The boy stood looking on in dogged silence, knitting his brows; but when he saw Deborah's tears, tears rushed to his own bright eyes. With a cry of passionate sorrow and remorse, he flung himself on his mother's grave and cried as if his heart would break. Charlie Fleming had idolised his mother. He was two years older than Deborah; he remembered the mother better. He never forgot her memory. Proud, reserved, and shy, he hid that memory in his heart, and would let no hand drag it forth. In his mad freaks, when old Dame Marjory, driven to distraction, solemnly upbraided him about his 'poor dear mother' and what _she_ would have thought, he mocked, and ran away shouting his derisive laughter. Seldom would a tear dim those bright roving eyes; neither rod, nor threat, nor lecture made Charlie Fleming quail; clenching his teeth and his hands, he stood his ground like a little demon: his stubborn heart would have broken rather than yield a whit. And what of Deborah Fleming? she who, at eight years old, cut her flowing locks like a boy, and ran away from home. She was not behind her brother in mischief, wit, or daring; wondrously bold was the spirit of the little Fleming. But the caprices of the child shall speak for themselves. CHAPTER THE SECOND. One afternoon Deborah was playing by the lodge-gates with little Margaret Dinnage, the bailiff's child, when a tall gipsy woman strode to the gate and looked through. Meg ran away with a scream of terror, but Deborah stood and stared up at the gipsy. She was a tall woman, dressed in faded red, with a yellow and scarlet shawl tied over her head; long glittering rings in her ears, and black, black eyes. Deborah never all her life forgot that woman looking through the gate; the vision was riveted on her childish memory. 'Come to me, pretty one,' said the woman, tossing her head backward; then imperiously: 'Come!' 'Where?' asked Deborah. 'Over yonder--to the camp. We want a pretty one like thee. I am gettin' old, child, an' I want you to come run arrands an' tell the fortunes o' the qual'ty.' '_I_ am the quality,' said Deborah gravely. '_You!_' retorted the gipsy, with sudden and savage scorn. 'You are o' the scum o' the airth!' Then in a moment the wild passion passed, she resumed her half-coaxing, half-imperative manner: 'Come, come, pretty love!' Deborah had been half startled; now she knew not what to make of the gipsy woman. Did the gipsy really like her, and wish to be kind? Deborah had never moved her large wondering eyes from the gipsy's face. 'I will not come,' she said, 'without Charlie.' 'Well, fetch Charlie, quick!' answered the gipsy with intense eagerness, and stooping forward to whisper the words. Deborah drew back; something within her rebelled; the woman was too imperious and too bold. 'Charlie will not come,' she answered; 'he hates gipsies.'