The storm being practically over, I stepped from the tent into the open, finding the air deliciously cool and refreshing, and as it was getting late I bade adieu to my friends—“and so home,” as the old diarist so quaintly expresses it. Next evening I sought out the van occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Beshaley from among several drawn up in the same field. They had one of the most comfortable—not to say luxurious—vans I had ever entered; however, as the weather was gloriously fine, tea was, as usual, partaken of outside. The man’s conversation interested me greatly, and although at times he expressed himself somewhat curiously, he was by no means an ignoramus. “Look here,” said he, “some folks don’t like us gypsies, in fact many people are afraid of us, and perhaps it’s all the better for us and for them as well that it is so. I reckon the gorgios are conceited, they’ll tell you their way of living in houses is the best, but we know very well our way is the best, and to prove it let me ask you why do the doctors send people for what they call the open-air treatment? Why do they send hundreds and thousands o’ kiddies into the country every year from London? Bless me! you can very nearly see ’em grow and go brown. Why do they do this if their way is the best? “And just think too what lots of the well-to-do people have got vans lately and fitted ’em out like hotels so they can play at bein’ gypsies. I’ll bet you yeck posh korauna to your shohaury that they don’t know how to chin a ran nor how to scrape a poovengro, and then they go home to their friends and say, ‘We’ve been gypsying, and it’s delightful.’ Oh, yes, Rye, I know how they talk,—and they say, ‘Really it’s quite inexpensive, you can hire a wagon for five or six pounds a week and if you economize it works out at next to nothing.’ A man cook sees to all the food for ’em, then they have a groom to ’tend to the horse, another man to open the newspaper and so on. Some of ’em pay for it of course, but I dare say some don’t, like the old song says— “A Rye and a Rawnie Jall’d yeck divvus To jib the Romany jibben, They chor’d a rinkeny vardo For which they both were stardo This bis bershor ta dui.” Being most anxious to secure a portrait of Mrs. Beshaley I asked her husband if he would object to my photographing her. “Not at all,” was his hearty reply. “I should like one of her myself, but I’m afraid you won’t get her to agree to it.” Therefore, when she next appeared I proffered my request. “No!” she replied, politely but very firmly. “I wouldn’t have my photograph taken for any money,—my brother once wanted me to have it done, but I wouldn’t, and then he offered me a golden sovereign if I would have it taken, but I didn’t, and I never will. Can’t you draw?” she inquired, and upon receiving my reply in the affirmative, added— “You are welcome to draw my portrait at any time, but I won’t be photographed if I know it.”