Need I add that in my book a blank space, of which I am prouder than of my rarest Callot, bears witness to-day to the fact that Tinka had her will? “Aunt,” I said, “you have been very hospitable to me. I do not want your silver plate, I will not take your gold ring; but to-morrow you shall have the little picture.” And when I brought it, framed gaudily, to give it some semblance of a gift for presentation to royalty, the Gypsies crowded excitedly round, and Tinka, almost in tears again, raised her proud hands to Heaven, and called down blessings on my head in showers so liberal that, if but a tithe be sent, I shall be among the most fortunate of men. 7. THE SICK BOY. {38} SEDATENESS was characteristic of the coppersmiths’ camp. Even when the air reverberated with the tapping of many hammers there was no bustle; work went on steadily, certainly, slowly, and with dignity. The arrival of a stranger was the pretext for an animated and noisy chorus of begging by the women, but on ordinary occasions the foreign Gypsies applied themselves solemnly to labour, or still more solemnly to interminable divans. Blood-curdling oaths in gentle Romani were hurled even at the spoiled children when they manifested their spirits and happiness too noisily; yet among them there was one who was privileged to be as troublesome as he chose without reproof, and he was the sick boy. His exceptional position seemed to have had a malign influence on his character, for he was not a nice child. With the want of their robust health he lacked also the sturdy independence of his playmates. They were self-reliant, forward, often impertinent, but always lovable—he was petulant, fretful, even peevish, and instinctively one pitied rather than liked him. Yet in all the tribe there was nobody—man, woman, or child, from the great chief Kola himself to the half-naked little ones—who would have hesitated to make any effort or any sacrifice by which to mitigate the sick boy’s distress. To his mother he was more than all the world. She was Zhawzha, the chief’s daughter (though to those who were not of the _afición_, she would have called herself Sophie), a strangely pathetic figure in whose face one could see traces of great beauty marred by bitter anxiety for her son. Among our first duties as friendly visitors to the camp were those of acting as her dragoman in the local surgery and bringing an eminent specialist from Liverpool to visit the patient. But we discovered gradually not only that she had consulted other doctors in Birkenhead, but also that she had prescriptions and drugs, enough to have stocked a pharmacy, which she had obtained from continental physicians. And all had prescribed bromides, prohibited excitement, and bidden the distracted mother wait patiently and hope—for the boy was epileptic.