Fin, looking on her with admiring eyes, did not fail to notice that in figure she had grown thin, to leanness, and that there shone a brilliancy, unnatural even for a gipsy, in the uneasy glances that watched his movements so narrowly, yet never rested for an instant on his face. Thyra always seemed unlike other girls, thought Fin, and this preoccupation, no doubt, was but the slyness of love. He took her hand, while the old beldame was busy refilling her pipe, and raised the slender, shapely fingers to his lips, with a comely grace, that a gipsy wears no less naturally than a prince of the blood. "To-morrow, Thyra," said he, "you will make Fin Cooper the happiest man alive. To-morrow we shall be one in the sight of all our people, never to part again. The parson of the Gorgios joins a couple by the hand, like a brace of thieves chained together in the dock, but the Romipen of the Romany, a true gipsy marriage, solders them heart to heart, as I would weld tin and copper into brass! To-morrow, my lass, you will be mine. To-night I am altogether yours. Ask me what you will, beautiful Thyra, I can deny you nothing at such a time as this!" Her hand remained in his while he spoke: when he dropped it she shivered from head to foot. "I am cold," she murmured, "so cold. There will be snow to-morrow, Fin, deep snow, amongst these hills. The Gorgio bride wears white on her marriage-day. A Romany lass might do worse than follow the example." Her fixed gaze, that seemed looking on some object miles and miles away, her sorrowful tone, so quiet and so very weary, disturbed him. He caught her hand once more, and would have drawn her into his arms, but for the shake and snort of a horse at the tent-door, and Parson Gale's well-known voice, bidding him rouse and show himself, with a tass of brandy in his hand. A man who has little to offer is usually very hospitable. Fin sprang forward to welcome the intruder, with cordial alacrity, and summoned a bare-legged urchin from half-a-score within call, to lead the Parson's horse into a sheltered nook behind the adjoining copse, where two or three donkeys were pulling at a truss of hay. Abner Gale was then hurried into the tent, and supplied with brandy; the inclemency of the weather rendering that liquor unusually grateful to his burly frame. "All friends, here?" asked the Parson, holding the untasted cup in his hand. "All friends," replied Fin Cooper. "The old woman is stone deaf, and this time to-morrow Thyra will be my wife!" Gale was equal to the occasion. Ere Waif could turn her head, he imprinted a kiss on her cheek, and tossed off the brandy to her health. "I claim my priest's dues," said he gallantly, "the first right to salute a bride. And now to business, Fin. Not a moment is to be lost. I want to borrow the sure-footed roan again to-night. I'll pay you handsome this time." With the lofty politeness of men who deal in horses honestly or otherwise, Fin ignored the question of money altogether.