Observe the stealthy step of that black-eyed gipsy; this is her harvest, and many a fortune will she tell before moonrise. She has golden promises for all; would that the world could roll on as she prophesies, there would be but little of either sighing or sorrow in it. What though she is an arch impostor, she has by her promises added another pleasure to the day's delight; happiness now and happiness in store may gladden many a future hour, which would otherwise be gloomy but for the hope with which the gipsy has gilded the future. It is a question, after all, whether the sixpence could have been better spent, though it has but purchased a harmless string of pleasing falsehoods, "which give delight but hurt not." The poor gipsy-woman must live, and she is at the worst but an open and honestly-avowed cheat--a holiday evil, that might be worse employed than in telling fortunes. What a burst of laughter! It is just as we expected; the jolly sailor, with the corners of his neckerchief streaming out like the mane of a war-horse, has gone down the hill with a roll, and carried his partner, the dashing lady from Wapping in the pink bonnet, along with him. There will be many similar disasters before night, which end at the worst in a crushed hat or bonnet, or a few harmless bruises. Much as we have murmured about trespassing, and prosecution, and enclosures, we really feel grateful to the Government for throwing open such a splendid park as this, over which we can wander at will, without being cautioned to keep on either foot-path or open road, but have liberty to tread on the grassy knolls, and are left as free as the antlered deer that walk and browse wherever they please. Fifteen minutes by the railway, and about thrice that time by the steamboat, and here we are treading the elastic sward, which on the hill yields to the footsteps like a rich carpet. What beautiful dips and rises lie every way, especially to the left of the Observatory! What mighty revolution of nature threw up that vast hill, sheer and abrupt from the valley, we can never know. Those ancient burrows, which lie scattered about the park, are the resting-places of the early inhabitants of Britain; beneath them lies the dust of the old Cymri,--disturb it not. Let us pause on the brow of this hill, and recal a few of the stirring scenes which these aged hawthorns have overlooked. They are the ancient foresters of the chase, and many of them have stood through the wintry storms of past centuries, and were gnarled and knotted, and stricken with age, long before Evelyn planned and planted those noble avenues of chestnuts and elms. Below, between the plain at the foot of the hill and the river, stood the old Palace of Greenwich, in which Henry VIII. held his revels, and where Edward VI., the boy-king, died. That ancient palace was no doubt rich in the spoils of many a plundered abbey and ruined monastery,--in [Illustration: GREENWICH PARK.]