It must not be inferred from what I have said, or shall say, that there are no good Gipsies among them. Here and there are females to be found ready at all hours and on all occasions to do good both to the souls and bodies of Gipsies and house-dwellers as they travel with their basket from door to door hawking their wares; and to illustrate the truth of this I cannot do better than refer to the case of the good and kind-hearted Mrs. Simpson, who is generally located with her husband and some grand-children in her van in the neighbourhood near Notting Hill, on the outskirts of London. Mrs. Simpson tells me that she is not a thorough Gipsy, only a half one. Her father was one of the rare old Gipsy family of Lees, of Norfolk, and her mother was a Gorgio or Gentile, who preferred following the “witching eye” and “black locks” to the rag and stick hovel—or, to be more aristocratic, “the tent”—whose roof and sides consisted of sticks and canvas, with an opening in the roof to serve as a chimney, through which the smoke arising from the hearth-stick fire could pass, excepting that which settled on the hands and face. Grass, green, decayed, or otherwise, to serve as a carpet, the brown trampled turf taking the place of mosaic and encaustic tile pavements, straw instead of a feather-bed, and a soap-box, tea-chest, and like things doing duty as drawing-room furniture. Mrs. Simpson, when quite a child, was always reckoned most clever in the art of deception, telling lies and fortunes out of a small black Testament, of which she could not read a sentence or tell a letter; sometimes reading the planets of silly geese, simpletons, and fools out of it when it was upside down, and when detected she was always ready with a plausible excuse, which they, with open mouths, always swallowed as Gospel; and for more than twenty-five years she kept herself and family in this way with sufficient money to keep them in luxury, loose living, and idleness, till the year of 1859, when, by some unaccountable means, her conscience, which, up to this time, had been insensible, dull, and without feeling, became awakened, sharp, and alive. Probably this quickening took place in consequence of her hearing a good Methodist minister in a mission-room in the neighbourhood. The result was that the money she took by telling fortunes began to burn her fingers, and to make it sit upon her conscience as easy as possible she had a large pocket made in her dress so that she could drop it in without much handling. It was no easy thing to give up such an easy way of getting a living to face the realities of an honest pedlar’s life, in the midst of “slamming of doors,” “cold-shoulders,” “scowls,” “frowns,” and insults; and a woman with less determination of character would never have attempted it—or, at least, if attempted, it would soon have been given up on account of the insurmountable difficulties surrounding it. Many times she has sat by