Gypsy's real name was an uncouth one--Jemima. It was partly for this reason, partly for its singular appropriateness, that her nickname had entirely transplanted the lawful and ugly one. This subject of nicknames is a curiosity. All rules of euphony, fitness, and common sense, that apply to other things, are utterly at fault here. A baby who cannot talk plainly, dubs himself "Tuty," or "Dess," or "Pet," or "Honey," and forthwith becomes Tuty, Dess, Pet, or Honey, the rest of his mortal life. All the particularly cross and disagreeable girls are Birdies and Sunbeams. All the brunettes with loud voices and red hands, who are growing up into the "strong-minded women," are Lilies and Effies and Angelinas, and other etherial creatures; while the little shallow, pink-and-white young ladies who cry very often and "get nervous," are quite as likely to be royal Constance, or Elizabeth, without any nickname at all. But Gypsy's name had undoubtedly been foreordained, so perfectly was it suited to Gypsy. For never a wild rover led a more untamed and happy life. Summer and winter, seed-time and harvest, found Gypsy out in the open air, as many hours out of the twenty-four as were not absolutely bolted and barred down into the school-room and dreamland. A fear of the weather never entered into Gypsy's creed; drenchings and freezings were so many soap-bubbles,--great fun while they lasted, and blown right away by dry stockings and mother's warm fire; so where was the harm? A good brisk thunderstorm out in the woods, with the lightning quivering all about her and the thunder crashing over her, was simple delight. A day of snow and sleet, with drifts knee-deep, and winds like so many little knives, was a festival. If you don't know the supreme bliss of a two-mile walk on such a day, when you have to shut your eyes, and wade your way, then Gypsy would pity you. Not a patch of woods, a pond, a brook, a river, a mountain, in the region (and there, in Vermont, there were plenty of them), but Gypsy knew it by heart.