“Isn’t this pretty?” Maida exclaimed as they descended into a hollow with high, thick, blossoming wild-rose bushes on both sides. Involuntarily, the Big Six stopped and looked about them. They stood in a little dimple in the earth--bushes growing thick and high on its sides. “How hot it is down here,” Laura commented, “and how sweet it smells.” “I call it the Bosky Dingle,” Maida explained. “What does Bosky Dingle mean?” Dicky enquired. “It’s a poetry phrase,” Maida told him. “It means a kind of woody hollow.” “There’s the Pond!” called the practical Harold. The children broke into a run. They came out on a cleared space with a boat-house and a long jetty, leading from a newly-shingled shed into the water. “This is for the canoes,” Maida explained. She unlocked the door and showed a single wide empty room. “Oh let’s go home and get the canoes and bring them down here,” Arthur explained. “I’m wild to try them.” “It will take two to carry each canoe,” Harold explained, “and we need bathing suits.” “There are bathing suits at home for all of us,” Maida explained. “Shall we turn back?” She asked this question politely, but she said it a little reluctantly. Rosie seemed to see her reluctance. “Did you have another plan, Maida?” Rosie demanded. “Well you see,” Maida answered slowly, “there’s a gypsy camp half way round the Magic Mirror and I thought you might like to visit it.” CHAPTER VI AFTERNOON “A gypsy camp!” Arthur repeated. “Sure I’d love to go.” “Gypsies!” Laura shrank a little. “I think I’d be scared of gypsies.” “You wouldn’t be scared of these gypsies,” Maida promised. “I’ve known them ever since I was a little girl. I am very fond of them.” “Well let’s go,” Arthur said, shifting from one foot to another in impatient excitement. The procession started again. “Tell us more about the gypsies, Maida,” Arthur demanded at once. “There isn’t very much to tell, except that they’ve come here every summer ever since I can remember and, indeed, long before I was born. Father has always permitted them to camp on this ground, rent free. I don’t seem to remember much about them when I was very little, except that I used to go and buy baskets with Granny Flynn and they always told Granny’s fortune. ‘Cross my palm with silver,’ they say. That means, ‘Put some money in my hand!’” “How many are there?” Dicky enquired. “Not many. Perhaps a dozen. Let me see there’s Aunt Save and Uncle Save the father and mother, and Aunt Vashti, the old, old grandmother. She would frighten even you, Rosie--She looks like a witch. But she’s very kind and I’m very fond of her. And there’s Esther and Miriam, their daughters and Hector and Tom, their husbands; and their children. And then there are always three or four relatives--different ones every year--who come up from the South with them.” “They go South then every winter?” Arthur continued.