His companion mused for several minutes; and even when he did speak, he took no notice either of the gipsy's suspicions or of the news he gave him, but rather,--as one sometimes does when one wishes any thing just heard to mature itself in the mind, ere further comment be made upon it,--he linked on what he next said, to that part of Pharold's speech which might have seemed the least interesting, namely, the gipsy's own history; and yet, although he certainly did this, in order to avoid, for the time, the most important parts of his narrative, he did not do it with the commonplace tone of one who speaks of feelings with which he has no sympathy: on the contrary, he spoke with warmth, and kindness, and enthusiasm; and expressed profound regret that the gipsy had, in his boyhood, thrown away advantages so seldom held out to one of his tribe. "Why? why?" cried the gipsy, "why should you grieve? I did but what you have done yourself. I quitted a life of sloth, effeminacy, and bondage, for one of ease, freedom, and activity. I left false forms, unnatural restraints, enfeebling habits--ay! and sickness too, for the customs of my fathers, for man's native mode of life, for a continual existence in the bosom of beautiful nature, and for blessed health. We know no sickness but that which carries us to our grave; we feel no vapours; we know no nerves. Go, ask the multitude of doctors,--a curse which man's own luxurious habits have brought upon him,--go, ask your doctor's whether a gipsy be not to be envied, for his exemption from the plagues that punish other men's effeminate habits." "True, Pharold! true!" replied his companion; "but still, even the short time that you lived in other scenes must have given your mind a taste for very different enjoyments from those that you can now find. You must have seen the beauty of law and order; you must have learned to delight in mental pleasures; you must long for the society of those of equal intellect and knowledge with yourself."