of which we have little or no conception, and whose pronouncements are no more intentional swindling than are those of a phrenologist, and one cannot but respect some of the arguments they advance in their defence:— They seldom foretell ill-luck,—usually they predict a happy marriage, accession to wealth, long life and a good time generally. They contend that this is no more reprehensible than the lie which passes one’s lips when he says to a friend who is very ill, or may be apparently on the road to recovery, “Oh, you certainly look so much better than you did yesterday,” knowing the while that the sufferer is more seriously ill than on the previous day. That surely it is well to foretell a good time, even when the seer has no prescience in the matter, so that the anxious one may be cheered by the thought of the happiness lying just ahead, although it be always just ahead, as to many it too often is until with their latest breath it becomes a glorious reality. Better this, anyhow, than the uncharitable pessimism of a writer on this very subject of the last century, who, after characterizing everything a gypsy might say as a “stark lie” said, “And why should we deceive ourselves with gay and splendid expectations?” After all, whatever may be our individual leanings in these matters,—the things that really count may be best gauged by the words of Him Who said: “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these, ye have done it unto Me.” Once in the hop country I heard a child at a little distance crying distressfully as though in pain; before I could reach her, a somewhat rough-looking gypsy fellow forestalled me, and, after gently endeavouring to soothe the child, he called to a woman near for a piece of rag,—some one had evidently thrown a sharp stone which had cut, rather badly, the face of the child, causing it to bleed freely. The woman, seeing that a piece of linen was necessary, at once ripped off a piece of the blouse she was wearing, applied the inner side to the child’s face and bound up the wound. After it had ceased crying she led it away to its mother in a distant part of the field. The torn blouse seemed to be of no consequence,—a little child was in trouble and she had done what she could. CHAPTER XI